Welcome back to our next edition of our Commodore coach profiles, where today we meet the man in charge of the arms of the Dores’. Todd Carroll, your pitching coach for the 2025 season, has a rather unusual resume. I challenge you to name a coach that has worked for both a big-league organization and in the Dominican Republic, while also logging time at two of the most academically prestigious schools in the world. The Burlington, Mass. Native has spent his life in the game of baseball. After a brief one-semester career at Ithica College, Carroll took his talents to Umass-Boston, where his career on the diamond began.
After his playing days were over, Carroll, like much of the coaching staff, took a coaching job at the school he played for. After three seasons in Beantown from 2001-2003, he took a job at Salem Community College in New Jersey. During that time, he also coached in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. He continued to move around throughout the northeast, where from 06-07, he was a volunteer assistant at a one Harvard University. Throughout all this, Carroll even found himself in our very own Cape League, working with Wareham in 2007, notably coaching Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel at that time. In 2010, our man found his home. Carroll has spent 13 of his last 15 years as the pitching coach at MIT.
Carroll describes his time there as one “one of the more unbelievable experiences of my life, getting to coach kids so driven both academically and athletically.” Everyone knows the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as one of the world’s premier universities, but what most people don’t know, is how greatly athletics impacts their students. Among the DIII ranks, the Engineers compete in more sports than any other team in the nation, with 33 different teams. Per Carroll, one in every six of the 4,500 undergrad population competes athletically. The talent level necessary to play a sport in college is rare, but the talent level needed to just to get into MIT is unthinkable to most of us. Now think about what it takes to not only go to school there but also be able to give enough time and effort to become a collegiate athlete. To be able to coach kids like that, seems almost as difficult as being a kid like that. Mix in a brief stint with the Seattle Mariners, and a year coaching in the D,R,, and we’re all caught up.
For coach Carroll, his coaching journey has always been about getting better. He made it clear to me that his goal is to always be a better coach today than he was yesterday, a better coach five years from now than he is today, and so on and so forth. For example, communication is crucial to a coach’s success, so for coach Carroll, having to do so through a second language taught him that much more about “ways to package information to the athletes.” He also says he left the D.R. a better person and a better coach However, in the spirit of learning, perhaps his most useful coaching stop came during his time with the Mariners farm system. Carroll knew the next generation was coming, and he knew he needed to find a way to stay in the sport he loved. So, he adapted, learning to coach through analytics more so than he had in the past. “I take a lot of pride in being a lifelong learner and try to stay on top of where the game is going in terms of modern information, while also trying to piece that back with some of the old-school values that still work,” said Carroll. He went on to say that whoever blends that the best will end up being the better coach. He takes a rare mindset into the realm of coaching, as he told me that in order to succeed as a learner in the sport, you must be okay with being proven wrong. In some instances, Carroll even said it’s “freakin’ awesome” to be proven wrong, because it means you’re learning. That’s a rare quality left in society today, but Todd Carroll is a rare breed of quality coach.
One word that was used consistently throughout my time with Carroll was ‘intentional.’ I've heard coaches throughout my life live and die by an ‘intentional’ mindset. To coach Carroll, to be intentional is to be on purpose with purpose, and it is to be consistent with everything he and his players do. With so many different versions of information being thrown at players today, Carroll’s biggest task for himself is to remember that baseball is hard, for his players' sake. So, he does everything he can to “meet the players where they are,” whether it be in life, in the classroom, or on the baseball field.
Much like our previous coach, I asked Carroll about his future ambitions for the rest of his coaching career. And much like our previous coach, I got what seems to be just the run-of-the-mill politically correct answer. But again, much like our previous coach, it doesn’t take long to realize how genuine the answer actually is. He says that he’s happy where he is, he loves coaching at MIT, and that the sense of community around him is something that you can’t put a price tag on, even referencing one of his fellow coach’s sons that knows him as “Uncle Todd.” New England baseball also holds a special place in the heart of coach Carroll, adding an extra layer of happiness with his current situation.
As will be tradition during this series, I asked coach Carroll what his best advice is to anyone looking to strive in their field; his answer was to “be yourself, but align with who you work for.” While it may sound confusing at first, it’s pretty simple: remain who you are, stay unique, but also be able to come together and work for the betterment of the group. Championship season or not, Salty’s coaching staff will leave a successful mark on the 2025 Commodores campaign.
