Mike Vukovcan One of the many neat and rewarding aspects of youth sports is watching the year to year development of players.
Although winning is fun and something that every team tries to achieve, at the end of the year, they’ll only be one champion but plenty of players have the chance to develop and get better.
I’ve had the opportunity to watch most of the youth baseball players in Hopewell over the last handful of seasons and with that being said, I’m pretty confident in saying that there’s not a player that’s made more improvement over the last couple of seasons than 8th grader Tyler Hoffman.
That’s not to say that Hoffman wasn’t a good player before but the improvement he’s made in all areas of his games, such as hitting, defense, pitching, speed, has been both impressive and fun to watch.
What makes this even more special is that Hoffman is one of the nicest, most polite and team oriented players that you’ll ever meet.
Hopewell’s Tyler Hoffman
Prior to Hoffman and his teammates opening up the 2025 Beaver County Pony League playoffs tomorrow, Vikings Sports Now had the chance to talk with Hoffman about his season and the improvement he’s made. Not surprisingly, Hoffman made a point of mentioning his teammates as a reason for his improvement.
“I’m having a lot of fun this year and I’m pretty sure that how loud and how much we talk in the dugout together, that my teammates are having fun too,” says Hoffman. ”
For the regular season, Hoffman was second on the team with a .465 average, a .521 on-base pct., a .651 slugging pct and a team leading 15 RBI.
When asked to talk about his performance and to give himself a grade, Hoffman was very humble.
“I’m not sure, probably a B performance, maybe a B+ because sometime I hit well and make some plays in the field but other times, I slip up and don’t get the hits when needed.
“I do feel as though I have improved and that the work I’ve put in is starting to pay out,” said Hoffman. “Along with that, a lot of players on the team have gotten better and because of that, our team is getting better, which is the most important thing.”
For another opinion on Tyler’s improvement, I talked to someone that’s watched all of his games and at-bats, his dad, Chip Hoffman.
“The thing that I’ve talked to him about and to his credit, he’s listened, and he’s worked to improve all aspects of his game,” said Chip Hoffman. “With his bat, he hasn’t really done anything different, it’s just understanding to launch from the same spot and hitting the ball early. He’s really put a lot of work in with plyometrics. He knew that he had to get faster and quicker. He’s done a lot of basic footwork drills because he was a bigger kid that hadn’t grown into his body yet and sometimes didn’t move as well. Although he’s gotten better, he knows that he still has more work to do”
Improvement isn’t made because he hope to get better, work must be done and Tyler continues to put in time so that all areas of his game improve.
“I have a garage that has concrete walls and I practice fielding, pitching and foot work drills down there. In my basement, I work on plyometrics and also have tape on the floor for catching drills and footwork drills.”
Those areas have helped Hoffman as far as his footwork, pitching and glove work when called upon to play either 3rd base, 1st base or catcher but his biggest improvement has come from his bat, where he’s developed into a legitimate middle of the order hitter.
“I’ve gotten more confident hitting over the years and my dad got me batting cage for the back yard so I have been practicing a lot in that,” said Hoffman. “But I also gotten better because of my teammates and the support they give me in the dugout. But when you’re hitting with confidence it is fun. You look to see where you are in the order, when you’re turn is coming up. The inning before when I’m in the field and I know I’m hitting next, I get excited and look forward to it. The players in front of me in the lineup and behind me have been hitting well lately, which gets me more at-bats, which is fun.”
“As bad as the slumps are, when you can get young kids to realize that the slumps don’t last nearly as long as you think,” said Coach Hoffman. “I want to give a ton of credit to not only Hopewell coaches but other coaches he’s had. A lot of that though are the Hopewell coaches that have really worked and helped to get keep the confidence just by the way they talk to him. Junior High was a really good experience for him this year and he really bought into everything they told and taught him.”
While everything mentioned above has helped in his improvement, another area that Tyler wanted to mention is the help, encouragement and sometimes tough love that he receives from his father, Chip, who’s also his coach in Pony League.
“He pushes and encourages me to do all the drills that my junior high coaches and travel ball coaches from past years have told me to do at home. He pushes me to have confidence in myself and always tries to give me encouragement in all areas of my game regardless of how I’m doing.”
“Watching him this year, I’m pretty even keeled during the game,” said Coach Hoffman. “After the games, we talk and have good conversations on the way home. Now when he has really good games (laughing), obviously, I have to give him a hug but I have to hold all that stuff until we’re loading the truck up.”
Tyler hopes to have a lot more at-bats this week as he and his teammates will start the Pony League playoffs tomorrow when they take on Riverside.
“I’m really looking forward to tomorrow and hopefully our team can get hot and continue to play well,” said Hoffman. “I’m hoping our bats get hot and we can make a run at a championship.”
“I’m looking forward to the playoffs and I’m glad we have a home game tomorrow. I would’ve liked to have had a bye. However, with this format, it’s going to be difficult for any team. I love our team when we’re playing with our whole team. We’ll see how deep our pitching is but ultimately, we’ll go as far as our bats take us. If we can put up runs, I think we’re good enough to go far. If we hit the ball and we have our best nine players in the lineup and our defense is just solid, I think we have a chance to play until Friday.”
