Report: Iowa baseball will hire Sean Kenny as pitching coach
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Iowa baseball coach Rick Heller has reportedly found his next pitching coach.
Kendall Rogers from D1Baseball reported Tuesday that Iowa will hire Sean Kenny as its new pitching coach.
Kenny has three decades of coaching experience at the collegiate level, with stints at Michigan, Maryland and Georgia.
He spent the 2024 season as the pitching coach for the Houston Cougars.
Kenny replaces Sean McGrath, who left the Iowa program shortly after the 2024 season, and after just two seasons with the Hawkeyes.
Heller said in a recent interview with Hawk Fanatic that he and McGrath came to an agreement shortly after the season that making a change would be in the best interest of both McGrath and the Iowa program.
Iowa featured one of the top college pitchers in the country in junior Brody Brecht, and he would go on to make first-team All-Big Ten this past season. Brecht now plans to enter the 2024 Major League draft and is considered a potential first-round pick.
However, on the flipside, the Iowa pitchers also struggled with allowing too many free bases, and it proved costly as Iowa was only seeded fifth in the Big Ten Tournament, and lost both games in the tournament, after having been the only Big Ten team ranked in the top 25 heading into the season.
In addition to Brecht, starting pitcher and Iowa City native Marcus Morgan also has declared for the draft, leaving fellow Iowa City native Cade Obermueller as Iowa’s only returning starter.
Kenny is a graduate of Eastern Michigan, where he was an All-MAC pitcher for the Eagles. He was selected in the 17th round of the 1993 Major League Baseball Draft by the New York Mets and played three seasons in the Mets farm system.