Two big dominoes have fallen for Kentucky baseball following its historic 2024 season as assistant coach Nick Ammirati has left the program along with Nolan McCarthy, who entered the transfer portal.
The move to enter the transfer portal for McCarthy came just about a full day after news was broken by Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball that Ammiriati’s contract at Kentucky had expired and he was taking the assistant coach job opening at Georgia.
The two moves may have a direct correlation as the two had been very close with one another.
“Ammo doesn’t get talked about a whole lot, but he is one of the smartest baseball minds I’ve ever been around,” McCarthy said. “He completely changed everything about my baseball career.”
Looking at Georgia’s outfield, the Bulldogs are losing three of their players who earned a steady amount of playing time in Paul Toetz, Dylan Goldstein and Clayton Chadwick, so if McCarthy chose to follow Ammirati, there may be a spot for him in the outfield in Athens.
Ammirati joined the coaching staff in 2021 as a volunteer and was credited with helping the program turnaround and upswing in recent seasons, particularly on offense.
“One major change we made was bringing Nick Ammirati from coaching third base to be in the dugout with the players,” head coach Nick Mingione said.
Coach Ammirati departed from the program after his contract expired on June 30th.
As far as McCarthy goes, the redshirt junior gave some memorable moments to Big Blue Nation in what could be his final season in blue and white with one of them being his Pete Rose dive into home plate that ended up being the decisive run that sent the Bat Cats to the Men’s College World Series for the first time.
In the team’s first game in Omaha against NC State, McCarthy clubbed a two-run home run, which gave Kentucky the lead at that point in the ballgame.
On the year, McCarthy finished with a .288 batting average, .380 on-base percentage and a .480 slugging percentage.
With his departure, seven of the nine everyday players in the Kentucky lineup are gone as James McCoy and Devin Burkes are the only two who remain.
It has become very clear if it was not already that Mingione and what’s left of his staff certainly have their hands full with coaching and roster turnover as they try and replicate the historic season that just concluded.
