Nate Yeskie Season 2025
Assistant coach Nate Yeskie is in Year 2 at LSU, but he is no stranger to college baseball, having worked for 18 years at four different schools (UNLV, Oregon State, Arizona and Texas A&M) prior to his arrival in Baton Rouge in the summer of 2023.
“I couldn’t be more excited to add Nate Yeskie as our new pitching coach,” LSU head coach Jay Johnson said when Yeskie was hired on June 30, 2023. “Nate has an unmatched track record in college baseball for pitching coaches relative to developing pitching talent for professional baseball, College World Series trips, and winning in general. His coaching acumen is very complete and current, and future pitchers at LSU will develop to their highest potential because of the opportunity to work with Coach Yeskie.
“Nate is regarded as one of the best and most respected pitching coaches in the country at any level. He is an exceptional communicator and teacher; he connects with his players on the highest possible level, which has led to the development of some of the best pitchers and pitching staffs in college baseball.”
Yeskie’s accolades include five conference titles, 15 regional appearances, six super regionals and five trips to the College World Series, culminating in the 2018 National Championship with Oregon State.
He is the only active assistant coach in the NCAA that has been to the College World Series in Omaha with three different programs: Oregon State in 2013, 2017, 2018; Arizona in 2021 and Texas A&M in 2022.
He has chiseled out a reputation as one of the elite pitching coaches in the country during his 19-year career. He has twice earned National Pitching Coach of the Year recognition from Collegiate Baseball in 2013 and 2017. He was also tabbed the D1Baseball Assistant Coach of the Year in 2017.
He has been recognized in a poll of 70 Division I head coaches by Baseball America as a top assistant coach in college baseball. His career corps of pitchers have amassed 16+ all-conference selections, 16+ All-America honors and 10+ Freshman All-America picks.
In Yeskie’s first season at LSU, the 2024 Tigers’ pitching staff led the nation with 733 strikeouts, which was the second-highest total in school history. The Tigers also finished No. 2 in the nation in shutouts (7), No. 4 in strikeouts per nine innings (11.5) and No. 9 in hits allowed per nine innings (7.83).
An SEC-record eight LSU pitchers were selected in 2024 Major League Baseball Draft, including second-round selections Gage Jump (Oakland Athletics) and Luke Holman (Cincinnati Reds), third-round selection Thatcher Hurd (New York Yankees) and sixth-round selection Griffin Herring (New York Yankees).
Holman and Herring each earned 2024 All-America and All-SEC recognition. Holman finished No. 2 in the SEC in strikeouts (127), No. 2 in the league in opponent batting average (.174), No. 3 in ERA (2.75), No. 4 in wins (9) and No. 5 in innings pitched (91.2). Herring, the Tigers’ top reliever, led the SEC with a 1.14 ERA in conference games only, and he recorded two wins and five saves in league games.
In his time at Texas A&M, Yeskie helped guide the Aggies into the postseason both seasons he was on staff. In 2022, Texas A&M captured an SEC West title, an NCAA Regional and Super Regional Title, as well as a trip back to the College World Series where they registered two wins, defeating both Texas and Notre Dame.
During the 2023 campaign, Yeskie’s Texas A&M pitchers set an SEC Tournament record by recording the first nine-inning, one-hit shutout in SEC Tournament history. They did so by defeating Tennessee 3-0 in the opening game of the tournament and then matched it again two days later, blanking South Carolina 5-0.
In addition, his pitchers set a Texas A&M single game strikeout record, firing 23 against Texas Tech in the Shriners’ Classic. The pitching staff also finished the 2023 schedule recording the second-most strikeouts in school history with 633, placing the Aggies 12th nationally. Yeskie had five pitchers selected in the MLB draft during his two seasons at Texas A&M.
Yeskie arrived in College Station in 2022 after two seasons on head coach Jay Johnson’s staff at Arizona, including the 2021 College World Series campaign. In his first year with the Wildcats, Arizona showed vast improvement before COVID-19 shut down the season. The staff’s ERA dropped from 6.21 in 2019 to 3.87 while the WHIP (1.75 – 1.30) and opponent batting average (.287 – .212) were also slashed. Five Arizona pitchers went on to sign professional contracts, with three of them coming via the MLB draft.
Prior to his stint at Arizona, Yeskie coached 11 seasons with Oregon State, with the tenure culminating in a College World Series title in 2018. From 2009-19, Oregon State earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament in 10 of 11 seasons. Yeskie’s hurlers led the nation once and paced the Pac-12 in ERA three times.
On three separate occasions, his staff set school records for ERA in a season. The first time was in 2013 (2.28) and again in 2014 (2.21), followed up by the memorable 2017 season that produced the current school record with a 1.93 ERA, which was also the best in the country. Oregon State’s ERA ranked in the Top 20 in the nation on six occasions and was in the top four in the Pac-12 every year. The Beavers also set a school record for strikeouts in a game when they punched out 23 against Washington State in 2019.
Yeskie’s staffs help guide Oregon State to three separate 50+ win seasons (2013-52, 2017-56 and 2018-55). His staffs averaged 42+ wins per season over that time. His work helped Oregon State pitchers at the next level, as during his time in Corvallis, the Beavers churned out 32 pitchers selected in the MLB Draft. Yeskie mentored 20 pitchers who picked up 14 all-conference honors, three Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year Awards and one Pac-12 Freshman of the Year nod.
Yeskie began his collegiate coaching career at UNLV, his alma mater, from 2005-07. He coached eight Rebel hurlers who garnered All-Mountain West Conference or MWC All-Tournament recognition during his three seasons as well as the 2005 MWC Tournament MVP.
Yeskie, over 14 consecutive seasons (2009-2022), had a run of coaching at least one All-American, with seven of those seasons producing two, and sometimes three, recipients. In addition, he assisted in mentoring catchers Andrew Susac (MLB second-round pick), Logan Ice (second round), Adley Rutschman (first round & No. 1 overall pick), Austin Wells (first round) and Daniel Susac (first round).
In his career, Yeskie has coached 107 MLB Draft selections, with an additional 11 signing professional contracts. A total of 22 of those players have reached the Major League level. From that group, three have been named National Freshman of the Year and another was a Golden Spikes Award winner as the top amateur player in baseball.
A ninth-round pick of the Minnesota Twins in 1996, Yeskie played five years in their organization, including 47 games for the Double-A New Britain Rock Cats over three seasons. He notched 27 professional wins and also participated in the prestigious MLB Arizona Fall League.
A three-year letterwinner under coach Fred Dallimore at UNLV (1994-96), Yeskie amassed a 21-12 record with 246 strikeouts in 42 games. He worked a remarkable 144.1 innings as a sophomore, recording 147 strikeouts and nine complete games. His strikeout mark set a Rebels’ single-season record that still stands today. It ranked fifth nationally that season, as he earned All-Big West First Team and All-West Region First Team honors He was also a four-time invitee to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team trials.
Yeskie is a graduate of Carson High (Carson City, Nev.) where he enjoyed a tremendous high school career under coach Ron McNutt, winning a state title during his junior season in 1992. At the completion of his senior season in 1993 he was named a First-Team All-American by Baseball America. In addition, he also earned first team All-State and All-Conference honors and was the 1993 Northern Nevada AAA Pitcher of the Year, as well as the Nevada State Pitcher of the Year.
Yeskie was selected out of high school by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the sixth round of the MLB Draft. He holds the Nevada state high school records for strikeouts in a season with 158, which was set in 1993. That same season he also recorded a career-high 20 strikeouts in a seven-inning game.
Yeskie is married to his wife, Brittney, who was a volleyball player and later a volleyball coach at Oregon State. They have one daughter, A.J.