FIU’s baseball coach Rich Witten completes staff with two key hires

The remaking of the FIU baseball program’s young coaching staff is complete.

Gone are Mervyl Melendez and his top two assistants, former Marlins star Jeff Conine and pitching coach Willie Collazo.

New coach Rich Witten, 34, has hired two new assistants. He’s hired well-connected, former New York Yankees scout Brian Jeroloman, 37; and Sean Thompson, a youthful pitching coach at age 26 who directed some big results at Monmouth last year.

Witten said his coaches have varied skills. Jeroloman, for example, will be the hitting coach and lead recruiter, and he will work defensively with the catchers. Thompson is well-versed in analytics.

“Brian’s huge strengths are his evaluation skills and his connections in Florida,” Witten said. “Sean has not recruited South Florida heavily in his previous stops, but he is a master developer of pitchers. Our recruits will love him. He is on the cutting edge with pitch design, metrics, mechanics and fundamentals.”

Witten said he’ll set the vision for the staff, and the coaches will have to meet daily goals in order to reflect their commitment to winning.

“We have a younger staff with a lot of energy,” Jeroloman said. “We’re just going to go to work.”

Jeroloman, a lefty-hitting catcher in his playing days, was a three-year starter for the Florida Gators and a Toronto Blue Jays sixth-round pick in 2006.

From there, Jeroloman spent 11 years in the minors. He was called up to the majors once, but he never got to play in the majors due to injury.

After retiring as a player, Jeroloman coached one year at a junior college (St. Johns River). He spent 2018 and 2019 as a volunteer coach at the University of South Florida, and he then became a Yankees area scout.

Witten, hearing good things about Jeroloman, asked the Yankees for permission to interview him.

“I didn’t have a prior relationship with Brian, but he had great energy from our first phone call,” Witten said. “His electric personality stood out.”

Meanwhile, Thompson was the pitching coach in 2022 for Monmouth, which was top two in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in ERA, fewest walks and most strikeouts.

Also, for the first time ever, two Monmouth players were selected in the top 10 rounds of the same MLB Draft as Thompson-coached pitchers Trey Dombroski (fourth round, Astros) and Rob Hensey (ninth round, Reds) were picked.

Witten and Thompson go way back. Witten was VCU’s hitting coach in 2018 when Thompson was a senior pitcher on the Rams.

Thompson, who signed with the Chicago White Sox as an undrafted free agent in 2018 and had a brief two-year pro career, also worked with Witten as a coach. In 2021, Thompson was the director of pitching development at VCU.

Witten said Thompson was one of two finalists to interview in person for the job as pitching coach.

“I explained clearly to Sean that I wanted him to go through the interview process as if we didn’t know each other,” Witten said. “I was going to hire the best two coaches I could find.”

Thompson believes his age is an advantage in building relationships with his pitchers.

“I was a player very recently,” Thompson said, “and I’m able to use the new technology and translate it to my pitchers in a simple way.”

Thompson, who said he was drawn to FIU by the chance to again work with Witten and by the abundance of talent in the Florida prep ranks, said he has some set philosophies.

First, he wants to create a constant flow of communication between him and his pitchers. Second, in order to get buy-in, he plans on explaining the “why” of everything he coaches.

Third, he wants all his pitchers to have a routine that works for them.

“We don’t want to morph guys into what they’re not,” Thompson said. “But we’re going to pitch inside, and we’re going to spin the ball really well.”

In other words, look for more fastballs inside – which will open up the entire plate -- and more breaking balls in general.

“We’re going to spin it at a high rate and from a higher usage standpoint,” he said. “When I looked at the splits from last year, it showed we need to spin it better.”