New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns recently confirmed that the team’s entire coaching staff for 2024 will return in the same roles for 2025, though that hasn’t stopped the organization from adding a new voice to the mix.

On monday, SNY’s Andy Martino reported that the Mets are hiring assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel away from the New York Yankees. Druschel will step into the same role with the Mets, working under pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, who did not have an assistant in 2024.

Druschel, who served as the Iowa Hawkeyes’ pitching coach in 2017, previously served as the director of operations for the university’s baseball program. He joined the Yankees organization in 2019 and became a major league staff in 2022 under pitching coach Matt Blake. The move reunites Druschel with Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, who spent time as the Yankees’ bench coach before taking the job in Queens last season.

Over Druschel’s three seasons in the Bronx, Yankees pitchers posted a combined 3.68 ERA, ranking fourth in Major League Baseball behind the Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers and Seattle Mariners . By comparison, the Mets had a collective ERA of 3.96 in 2024, which ranked 15th in the league.

When Druschel was promoted to the Yankees’ big league staff in December 2021, the University of Iowa head baseball coach Rick Heller told Brendan Kuty (formerly of NJ Advance Media, now with The Athletic) that Druschel’s expertise goes far beyond analytics. Heller described him as a “constant learner” who is always ahead of the curve and has a unique ability to get buy-in from his players.

Over the past few seasons, the Yankees have excelled at identifying under-the-radar pitchers through free agency, waivers and trades and turning them into valuable assets. In 2024, they turned struggling outfielder Luke Weaver into a dominant shortstop by simplifying his lower half mechanics to a slide step on every pitch and tweaking his quick and changeup handles.

Lance Brozdowskia player development analyst at Marquee Sports Network, the regional sports network for the Chicago Cubs, praised Druschel as “one of the best in the business” in a Post on Twitter/X Monday, highlighting his deep knowledge of pitch design and seam orientation optimization.

Along with Hefner, Druschel will work with a pitching staff that is expected to undergo significant changes in 2025. Several notable pitchers — Sean Manaea, José Quintana, Luis Severino, Adam Ottavino, Ryne Stanek, Drew Smith and Brooks Raley — have become free agents at the end of the season, leaving several vacancies in both the starting rotation and bullpen.