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Earlier this month when we spoke with Mike Wasikowski he mentioned that one of his first priorities was finding a new pitching coach to go along with Wally Crancer and Jack Marder. That vacancy has now been filled according to Kendall Rogers of D1Baseball:
.@PurdueBaseball coach Mark Wasikowski will round out his staff with Sacramento State assistant Steve Holm. Holm has a strong rep. #Purdue
— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogersD1) July 15, 2016
Holm is also a west coast coach, as he has been the pitching coach at Sacramento State for the past four seasons. He helped them win a WAC championship in 2014 where they also reached the NCAA Tournament. Once there, they even did a little damage. They lost their opening game against Cal Poly 4-2, but beat powerhouse Arizona State in the loser's bracket 5-4 before falling again to Cal Poly in the next game.
Before that, Holm was doing a little thing called Major League Baseball. He was a 17th round draft choice of the Giants out of Oral Roberts in 2001 and took a long, long path to the show. He didn't make his Major League debut until April 4, 2008. He then bounced around, playing in 59 MLB games over three seasons with the Giants and Twins, ultimately getting 26 hits in 108 at bats primarily as a catcher.
Holm spent time in the minors with the Rockies and Marlins to finish his career, but could never stick in The Show. He spent parts of 12 seasons in the Minors from Norwich, Connecticut to Salem, Oregon.
As a coach he has a lot of promise:
Under Holm's guidance the 2015 Hornet pitching staff ended the season ranked third in all of NCAA Div. I with a 1.09 WHIP as well as ranking third with just 2.07 walks allowed per nine innings. The squad also ranked 12th nationally with only 7.70 hits allowed per nine innings and recorded single-season school records for earned run average (2.97 - 18th best in Div. I), opposing batting average (.235), and fewest walks allowed (124).
This sounds like a very good fit. Purdue's pitching the last four seasons has been abjectly terrible. It has ranked at the bottom of the Big Ten for four seasons straight and often by a large margin. Purdue had a 5.26 team ERA this season, which was only better than Northwestern. In 2014 Purdue was giving up a full run more than the rest of the conference, and it has not had a team ERA below 5 since 2012. It bottomed out at 6.46 in 2013, which was almost 2 runs worse than 12th place Penn State.
Holm has a big challenge ahead of him, but he seems up for it.