Baylor hires former longtime Cookeville coach with USA Baseball experience
After working with some of the country's brightest stars on the diamond over the past two decades through USA Baseball, Butch Chaffin will now lead one of the country's biggest talent producers among high school programs.
The same coach who has instructed the likes of current Major League Baseball standouts Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Bobby Witt Jr. was announced Wednesday as the next head coach for Baylor School's five-time TSSAA state championship baseball program.
Chaffin joins the Red Raiders with more than 40 years of coaching experience, which includes 552 wins while leading Cookeville High School for 25 seasons. He was inducted into the Tennessee Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in January 2024.
"I am beyond excited to be the baseball coach at Baylor School," Chaffin said in a Baylor press release. "I look forward to immersing myself in the culture and reaching the standards daily. Baylor is a special place, and I am thrilled for our future."
According to Baylor's release, Chaffin has worked with USA Baseball since 2006, while he also served as a special assignment scout for MLB's Kansas City Royals from 2000 to 2003. Chaffin's experience with USA Baseball includes helping lead the 12U national team to a gold medal in Taiwan in 2017, coaching on the 18U national team in 2010 and 2023, and working as an assistant coach for the USA Baseball collegiate national team last year on a staff that included former MLB players Michael Cuddyer and LaTroy Hawkins.
Chaffin has also worked at the MLB draft combine the past several years, which included serving as the hitting coordinator and instructor in 2024.
Chaffin, who been part of more than 200 baseball camps in 24 states and six countries, has helped 126 players earn college scholarships in his various instructional roles, and he led Cookeville to 13 district championships and six region titles in a tenure that ended in 2023. He has been a mainstay on the "Clearing the Bases" podcast and recently wrote a 350-page book, title "The Baseball Blueprint," which will be published in the near future.
Chaffin's impact in Tennessee includes helping develop the pitch-count system used by the TSSAA for high school baseball. He is an original member of the TBCA and has served on its executive board since 2015.
Chaffin is a graduate of Tennessee Tech University, where he served as an assistant coach from 1996-99.
"Coach Chaffin has a proven rich history of successful player and team development at both the college and high school levels," Baylor athletic director Mark Price said in the school's release. "He is gifted in connecting with student-athletes and will lead our baseball program in a way that aligns with the standards and traditions of Baylor School."
Baylor has won nine consecutive region titles and has produced five TSSAA state championships since 2003, which included a historic three-peat in 2018, 2019, and 2021. Most of the 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Spring Fling state tournament was not held that year.
Baylor has also produced more than 40 collegiate players and 10 professional players over the past 10 years under Mike Kinney and Greg Elie. The success stories include Nick Kurtz, a 2021 graduate of Baylor who starred for three seasons at Wake Forest before becoming the No. 4 selection of the 2024 MLB draft. Kurtz, who plays for the Athletics, was voted the American League's rookie of the year in 2025 and was an MLB All-Star for the first time this season.
Chaffin will inherit a loaded roster at Baylor — it includes Banks Addison and Blake Lundy, who are committed to Tennessee, brothers Emerson and Mac Morris, who are committed to Alabama, and Sam Godbout, who is committed to Wake Forest — but also a program that has just one win at the Spring Fling state tournament in three appearances since the 2021 title.
Baylor hires former longtime Cookeville coach with USA Baseball experience | Chattanooga Times Free Press
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