Arizona Wildcats Chip Hale Makes Significant Staff Changes

Arizona baseball coach Chip Hale announced in June that John DeRouin was promoted to the role of an assistant coach as the Wildcats pitching coach. He takes over the role of Kevin Vance who took the head coaching job at San Diego State. 

DeRouin has been in Tucson with UA for the past two years. He began as the Wildcats Director of Player Development in 2024 before he was promoted to become the Director of Pitching Performance and Strategy for this past season. 

"Since joining our program John has been a tremendous resource for our student-athletes and our staff and a major part of our improvement on the mound over the previous two seasons," Hale said shortly after the announcement. "Retaining and promoting John into a full-time coaching role overseeing our pitching is a great opportunity to continue our upward trajectory and sets us up for near-term and long-term success."

DeRouin was able to help take the pitching to another level for Arizona. From his first year to second year in the program, the Wildcats saw improvements in both strikeout-to-walk ratio and BB/9 rate. UA finished top-12 in the country in both of those areas this past season. 

"I would like to extend a sincere thank you to Coach Hale for his support and belief in my ability to take on this new role," DeRouin said on the promotion. "In two years at Arizona we have built a world-class pitching development program, and I look forward to the opportunity to continue building on our success. We have championship-caliber facilities, staff, and student-athletes in place at Arizona, putting us in the perfect position to achieve all our goals."

One of the relievers who saw the biggest jump in improvement is Tony Pluta, who just posted one of the best seasons a reliever has posted in program history. He was named the NCBWA Stopper of the Year and earned All-America selections across the board by every major outlet in the country for college baseball. His 14 saves this past season were tied for the fourth-most in the country, led the Big 12 and were a single-season program record.

In total, DeRouin helped develop two All-American pitchers, three First-Team All-Conference pitchers and four MLB Draft selections during his first two years with the Wildcats coaching staff.