From Princeton to the World Series: Danielle Dockx '18 and the Rays

In just three years, Danielle Dockx '18 went from Ivy League champion to American League champion.

As her Princeton career wrapped up – one that helped the Tiger program return to the top of the Ivy League with its 18th and 19th all-time titles in 2016 and 2017 – Dockx knew she wanted to work in sports after finishing up her ecology and evolutionary biology degree.

Her initial plan was to go into sports medicine, hence the EEB major and pre-med track. But, after a summer internship midway through her time at Princeton, Dockx decided that medical school wouldn't be in her future, an experience as valuable as figuring out what one does want to pursue.

"At that point, I didn't really know what exact avenue I wanted to go down to stay involved in sports, but I knew that was my number one priority, and obviously playing softball, baseball made the most sense," Dockx said.

During her senior year, Dockx learned of the Major League Baseball Diversity Fellowship Program through Kathleen Mannheimer, senior career advisor and liaison to Athletics from the Princeton Center for Career Development. Following a successful application and interview process, the Tampa Bay Rays selected Dockx to join their team for the 18-month fellowship, which lasted into 2020.

Once the fellowship was over, the Rays hired Dockx on as an assistant in the baseball development office, becoming at least the second Princeton athletics alumna in the last several years to land a role in an MLB front office, with former lightweight rower Emily Wiebe '16 now serving as the St. Louis Cardinals' manager of player development and performance. For Dockx, it was a change of leagues and many miles from fandom of her hometown Arizona Diamondbacks.

"I debated going into softball and coaching for a while and happened to land on this opportunity and it certainly worked out," Dockx said. "I did grow up a fan of the Diamondbacks, a fan of the hometown team, but when the culture is as good as it is at the Rays, it was a pretty easy transition."

From the team's headquarters in St. Petersburg, Fla., a usual year would have Dockx traveling to the Rays' minor league affiliates, which, stateside, for the last several years have included Princeton, W.Va., Fishkill, N.Y., Bowling Green, Ky., Port Charlotte, Fla., Montgomery, Ala., and Durham, N.C.

"(I would) serve as a bridge between our coaching staffs and the front office just to ensure that the information and how the front office is evaluating players is being conveyed clearly to our coaching staffs so that we can work together to best create and develop our players and let them move through the system," Dockx said.

The MLB Diversity Fellowship, which is open to people of color and female candidates, helped Dockx get noticed, and the former Tiger shortstop said the Rays' needing to do more with less leads to a range of ideas being welcomed.

In the 2020 MLB playoffs, the final three teams the Rays faced were all in the top four in payroll, according to Spotrac, while the Rays were the third-lowest of the 30 teams.

"It's just been so welcoming, and everyone has different perspectives, which I think is what really makes us tick," Dockx said. "Having to operate on such a low payroll I think creates space for innovation and just providing an outlet for everyone to work together. There's never been a moment where I felt like I needed to be silent or my voice wasn't heard."

It has opened her eyes as well to all of what goes on behind the scenes within an MLB club.

"(I've learned so much about) the amount of moving parts that go into making a team and putting a product on the field," Dockx said. "You always hear about the baseball operations department, but within baseball operations, there's so many different subdivisions. There's performance science and research and development, and my department is baseball development, but there's player development that kind of goes hand-in-hand with that, and at least for the Rays in particular, I feel like there's a lot of overlap between departments. Everyone kind of works together to get the team on the field, and the results have wound up in our favor."

With no set term on her time with the Rays since she's been hired on following the fellowship, Dockx has gotten the chance to think about where that career in sports might take her.

"I definitely think I've gotten a little better sense of the fact that I want to be field-facing, coach-facing, player-facing as much as I can, whether that develops into a more hybrid role kind of where I'm in right now, where I'm a bridge between the front office and our coaching staffs, whether it's being a field coordinator or even somehow making my way into the coaching sphere, I know that I want to be able to have those relationships with the on-field staff as well," Dockx said. "But as far as what that looks like, I'm just taking it day-by-day."

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