Detroit Tigers outfielder Riley Greene credits new trainer Ben De La Cruz for his power surge.

Greene has hit a career-high 15 home runs across 83 games in the 2024 season. The 23-year-old is on pace for 29 homers in his third MLB season, following five homers in 93 games in 2022 and 11 homers in 99 games in 2023. With one more, Greene's homer total this season will match that of his previous two seasons combined.

"This is the best I've felt," Greene said.

So what's the difference?

His latest development started with hiring De La Cruz as his trainer in the offseason. The goal for Greene was to enhance power and speed by increasing mobility in his hips and ankles, along with utilizing his glutes and hips more effectively to help reduce pain in his lower back.

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"I'm glad to be a small part of it because he puts all the work in," De La Cruz said. "I'm thankful that he trusted me and continues to trust me with this. He's a guy who's going to outwork a lot of people. No one knows that he works so hard because he's not very public about it, but he works his ass off, and I'm happy that he's having this great year after his injury."

De La Cruz, who grew up in Central Florida, and played college football at Bethune-Cookman and Eastern Kentucky, opened his training facility — DeLaCruz Sport Performance — in January 2017, planting his roots in northeast Orlando, only a few miles from Greene's hometown of Oviedo.

His first professional baseball client: Baltimore Orioles first baseman Ryan Mountcastle, one of Greene's close friends. De La Cruz also has a close relationship with Tripper Johnson, Greene's agent, and Jered Goodwin, Greene's personal hitting coach.

For many years, Johnson encouraged Greene — whom the Tigers selected No. 5 overall in the 2019 draft out of high school — to train at De La Cruz's facility, but Greene didn't want De La Cruz's services because he was already committed to working out with a personal friend who had his own gym.

"My motto is, if they come, they come, if they don't, they don't," De La Cruz said. "I've always wanted to work with him because I've heard he's a great guy, which he is, and I've always wanted to work with him because I've heard he's a freak athlete, which he really is. I wanted the opportunity to one day work with him, and I was ready for it whenever the time came."

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De La Cruz saw Greene whenever he watched Mountcastle take batting practice. The Oviedo boys practice together in Goodwin's offseason hitting group at Hagerty High School, where Greene has learned how to pull the ball with his left-handed swing over the past two years. De La Cruz didn't pressure Greene, but he always introduced himself with a smile on his face.

Finally, Greene called De La Cruz in the second half of the 2023 season. He made the decision to hire De La Cruz as his offseason trainer after suffering a stress reaction in his left fibula, which sidelined him for more than a month.

Greene and De La Cruz started training in early October 2023 and ended training in early February 2024.

They became friends in the process.

"It means a lot to me — more than he knows — that he trusted me," said De La Cruz, whom Greene plans to work with again in the upcoming offseason. "That made me have more pressure on myself to make sure I'm doing what's right for him. I wanted to show him that he's going to get this same quality every year, but each year, he should get better and better because I get better and better in the way I learn what I do."

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'He wrote a program for me'

In early October, Greene — recovering from Tommy John surgery in his non-throwing right elbow — showed up to DeLaCruz Sport Performance for an assessment, allowing his new trainer to gather the information needed to set the foundation for Greene's offseason program.

Greene jumped on force plates to deliver all the data.

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It turned into the most structured offseason plan Greene has ever experienced, built to his specific needs. He used to bench press and squat for his strength training, but with De La Cruz, he did workouts that he didn't know existed to activate small muscles that he didn't know he needed to focus on.

"It was the small details," Greene said. "He ran a bunch of tests the first time I was there to get a feel for my flexibility, hips, whatever. He wrote a program for me. I told him that I had some issues in the past with some of my injuries and things like that. He made sure to hit on those and hit on everything else. If I had a friend come to me and ask who to go to, it would be him."

When Greene returned to full-speed running, De La Cruz conducted additional assessments and discovered there were issues from repetitive baseball movements that needed to be addressed. The problem areas were Greene's hips and ankles.

"He was really tight in his hips," De La Cruz said. "His hips were very tight and his ankles were really tight. We really worked on mobility and getting those to be stronger in deeper rangers of motion and stronger in different ranges of motion."

Greene, who added 10 pounds, implemented heavy lifting, weighted sprints, plyometrics and new movement patterns throughout the offseason. He used a Proteus machine — designed for resistance training — to boost his rotational power.

De La Cruz provided the plan.

Greene put in the work.

"It was getting him stronger in his hips, getting him stronger in his lower back and getting him stronger in different ranges of motion," De La Cruz said. "It was getting his hips to be more mobile, understanding how to unlock those hips and get them to move, and then getting his ankles to be able to reduce force on the ground, and then getting him stronger. Increasing his mobility and getting him stronger were the top two things that I think really helped him.”

'I'm not surprised'

Greene had his arm in a brace when he arrived at DeLaCruz Sport Performance in early October.

He was still recovering from Tommy John surgery Sept. 20 to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow after injuring it Sept. 1 on a diving catch in Chicago.

Not only did De La Cruz train Greene, he also helped him rehab from elbow surgery. To do so, De La Cruz worked alongside the Tigers. He stayed in contact with physical therapist Duncan Evans and performance coach Shane Wallen.

"We were all on the same page," De La Cruz said, tipping his cap to Wallen. "That's why it was a successful rehab, because we were on the same page. That's really hard to do sometimes. In the industry, there are a lot of egos."

On a typical offseason day, Greene would drive from Oviedo to Lakeland for physical therapy with Evans, then from Lakeland to Orlando to work with De La Cruz. The total drive time on Interstate 4 amounted to more than two hours each day.

"I was very limited on what I could do, so he was coming up with creative ways to work out," Greene said, explaining his rehab with De La Cruz. "I was driving to Lakeland three to four times a week. I was like, 'Hey man, I might be there around 1 or 2 (p.m.), but I don't know about traffic.' He was very flexible with my schedule."

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Greene prioritized his offseason training for the first time in his professional career because of the stress reaction in his left fibula, keeping him out from late May through early July. Immediately after Greene's injury, the Tigers lost nine games in a row.

He wondered if he could've avoided the injury with a better training program in the offseason, and that's when he knew something had to change. Making the switch to De La Cruz as his trainer is an example of his continued maturity, both on and off the field.

Greene finally grasped the concept of investing in his body.

"He's incredible, he's really good at what he does, and I made the right decision going to him," Greene said of De La Cruz. "I felt bad leaving the other guy, but it was one of those things where I got to take care of my career. I've been hurt in the past, and I'm not saying it's his fault, but you got to change something up every once in a while."

The De La Cruz-prescribed offseason program is the reason for Greene's breakout results at the plate. He didn't get the All-Star votes he deserved, but the lack of fan votes doesn't take away from the fact that he's one of the best outfielders in the American League.

His career-high .830 OPS ranks 23rd among 144 qualified hitters in MLB.

"I'm not surprised," De La Cruz said. "If you would’ve called me in spring training, I would’ve told you to get your popcorn ready."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers' Riley Greene's secret to power hitting: Hips & ankles