New pitching coach Nate Yeskie evaluates LSU's staff for 2024

After 18 years as one of the most respected pitching coaches in college baseball, Nate Yeskie has rejoined Jay Johnson, this time coming to Baton Rouge to fill the vacant job in Baton Rouge. Coming off of a national title season, LSU is looking to replace multiple arms including Paul Skenes, Ty Floyd, Riley Cooper heading to the major leagues.

Yeskie met with the LSU media on Friday afternoon and talked about the Tigers’ pitching staff and what he’s seen with two weeks before first pitch.

On last year’s LSU staff improving late in the year…

“It speaks to their growth individually. I saw Ty Floyd as a freshman, I saw Riley Cooper at Arizona, then you had Nate Ackenhausen, Griffin Herring, and under the brightest lights you have the biggest stars and that brought out the best in them. It was a matter of time. Paul shouldered a lot of the load carrying them there, then they took them across the finish line.”

LSU players having three different pitching coaches in three years…

“It’s a filtration system for all of us. We all have different bosses at different times and as you go through it, it mirrors that of Major League Baseball, where you have a different coach at every level. It’s knowing what you need to take out of it. It’s a buffet: You take the things you want and put them to good use and bypass the things you don’t.”

What do you like about the staff?

“The competitiveness. A lot of guys that have had some history to them and guys that understand the importance of getting outs, not necessarily ‘Am I the starter or the closer, what’s my role.’ You look at last year with Ackenhausen and Herring, if they don’t do what they did, the team doesn’t end up where they’re at. Those are guys that at the beginning of the year could have let it go south, but instead they stayed engaged, stayed focused on their work. This game will come calling and if you don’t stay ready then you’ll get exposed when your name does get called. If you go through the list of these older guys, it’s been different for them, but they’re getting to the other side and seeing a better version of themselves.”

On balancing old school and new school teaching philosophies…

“I’m probably a little bit older than some coaches in this game, but you have to stay current and up to speed with the tools available to you. It speaks to their language a little bit more because some of them are video game biased where a lot of their [learning] is visual, so if you can show them what the numbers do and show on video how it plays, those work well, but there are still some time tested principles that the old timers will tell you: You have to get ahead. You have to land more than one or two pitches, you have to be able to control the run game and field your position. As a pitcher, you can get lost instead of focusing on what I need to do to give myself the best chance to succeed.”

On late bullpen options at LSU…

“We have a handful of guys that can do it. Obviously, Guidry has done it in the past. Cade Woods who transferred in from Alabama has done it in the past. Last year there were a handful of guys that had saves. I’ve been around enough offensive guys that when they’re trying to gameplan, if you just set aside one guy, everybody wants Mariano Rivera, but in this day and age, if you have three capable guys to put in for the last few outs, college is a little different. There are some hybrid guys who can get five or six outs and your offense can allow you to make some of those decisions too.  The back end to me is different because the game might be on the line in the eighth inning so you go to your guy then and he gives you all he has and you have to go to someone else.”

What he wants to see in the next two weeks…

“Just establishing consistency and seeing how we deal with setbacks. Everybody has this vision that opening weekend is going to be a breeze, but we will have some setbacks, that’s baseball. You’re not going to go undefeated no matter how hard you try.”

Collaborating with Johnson in managing LSU games…

“My job is to let Jay know who is available. We spend our time looking through our analytics and looking through video and figuring out where our matchups are. Then there’s a readiness too, when the kids are stretching and playing catch to see where they’re at. We forget at times they’re young men, going through this for the first time. For some of these guys, this will be new, no matter how many times they’ve scrimmaged, when the Box is filled and people are getting excited. It’s the closest thing to Major League Baseball that they’ve experienced. Making sure the guys are mentally ready as well as physically ready and communicating with Jay throughout the game.”

Thatcher Hurd’s outlook at LSU…

“For him, it’s establishing consistency. In 2018 I went through a similar type of growth and consistency with a young man I had at Oregon State, Kevin Abel, where he was up and down then down the stretch he was very good. Being able to go through that process with him has given me perspective on what it’s going to be like going through this year with Thatcher. Just the fact there are no secrets anymore. You’ve pitched through this league and everybody has video and an understanding of what you like to do. Now, can you do the things you want to do really well? He’s not going to get four or five miles per hour more, it’s just executing those pitches.”