The Baseball Development Hub Podcast · Backside Groundballs Media

Sam Kulasingam, IF Air Force Academy

·59 min·5 clips

Trevor Powers and Dan Galati open by welcoming Sam Kulesingham from the Air Force Academy. He is introduced as a senior infielder, a back-to-back Mountain West player of the year, and a preseason Golden Spikes watch list name for two straight seasons. The interview quickly moves into how he ended up at Air Force. The hosts frame that route as unusual for athletes. Sam walks through the recruiting process and what it was like navigating it as a COVID-era player. From there, the conversation turns technical. Sam explains how he thinks about the strike zone. He talks about being willing to let that zone shift a little depending on the pitcher and the count. He also explains why he only changes his stance in pitcher-dependent situations. Once he gets to two strikes, he does not like moving his box position anymore. That leads into a broader comparison between college and high school hitting. In his view, college umpires are better and the zone is smaller, so having a stable zone matters more. The hosts keep pressing into his two-strike approach. Sam says he usually is not sitting on one specific pitch or location. He pictures the zone and looks to react to anything that shows up where he expects a strike. Against pitchers with obvious two-strike habits, he does adjust. If a pitcher leans hard on a high fastball or a slider with two strikes, he will plan for that. The exchange stays detailed without getting stiff. It keeps coming back to how hitters make decisions in real time. The end result is a conversation that blends recruiting background, Air Force context, and practical hitting mechanics. It is more about how a college hitter sees the game than about slogans or big-picture framing.

As heard by us

A grounded baseball development chat with real focus on recruiting, approach, and two-strike hitting.

Sam's path into the Air Force gives the episode its outline, but the baseball talk carries more of the weight. The discussion moves from recruiting and fit into the nuts and bolts of hitting: zone awareness, two-strike choices, pitch hunting, and the way college hitters adjust…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play for an Air Force infielder talking recruiting, adversity, and the zone.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Baseball Development Hub Podcast