Wildcats Baseball Team Announces Pitching Coach And Portal Updates

Arizona baseball coach Chip Hale announced Friday that John DeRouin is being promoted and will become the new pitching coach. DeRouin takes over for Kevin Vance, who left the program to become the head coach at San Diego State University.

The 25-year old DeRouin has been with Hale for two seaosns. He started as director of player development in 2024. He spent the 2025 season as the director of pitching performance and strategy. It was his job to develop pitchers and help call the games with Vance.

“Since joining our program John has been a tremendous resource for out student-athletes and our staff and a major part of our improvement on the mound over the previous two seasons,” Hale said in a statement released by the university. “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.”

According to Hale, DeRouin was instrumental in the development of starters Owen Kramkowski and Smith Bailey. The two were extremely active for the Wildcats this season as they combined for 36 starts. The two are also participating in the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team Training Camp.

All-American reliever Tony Pluta, who was most recently named to D1Baseball's All-American Second Team, excelled under DeRouin's management. The junior is the first player in school history to be named to six different All-America teams in one season.

DeRouin learned last week that he will inherit a new pitcher from the transfer portal as former Tulane pitcher Luc Fladda transfers to the Wildcats program for his final season of eligibility.

The lefty started at Oklahoma and was at JUCO before that, so he is well-traveled. He started 30 games in New Orleans for Tulane. He was 4-6 in 2025 with a 6.69 ERA. His record is not that encouraging, but he does have a high strikeout to walk ratio. He struck out 62 batters, while only yielding 11 walks in 76.2 frames.

Fladda will join two other transfers in the rotation next season. He will be accompanied by Patrick Morris, a left-hander from Western Kentucky and right-hander JT Drake, from Texas Tech.

The Wildcats got hit hard by players transferring out. They had nine players from the 2025 team that advanced to the College World Series enter the transfer portal. Coach Hale can only hope he does not lose any more players before the portal closes on July 1.

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