Kentucky Baseball Assistant Nick Ammirati leaves for Georgia

Kentucky Baseball Assistant Coach Nick Ammirati is leaving Lexington to join Georgia’s staff, D1Baseball’s Kendall Rogers reported Monday.

Ammirati replaces assistant coach Josh Simpson, who returned to LSU earlier this season. Coach Ammo joins assistant coach Will Coggin in Athens, who was an assistant under Nick Mingione on the Kentucky staff from 2020-2023.

Ammirati left Southern Miss for the Kentucky job in 2021, but his updated contract with Kentucky ran from July 3, 2023 to June 30, 2024. Instead of renegotiating, his contract expired at midnight last night and he decided to make the move to Georgia . He made $40,000 plus bonuses this past season at Kentucky.

Following Kentucky’s Super Regional victory over Oregon State and clinching its first-ever berth in the Men’s College World Series, Mingione credited a major move by turning around the entire program; Ammirati moved from third base coach to the dugout as he assumed third base coach duties.

“I can’t do this by myself anymore,” Mingione said. “The Lord put it on my heart that I wasn’t using the spiritual gifts that He’s given me, and basically we have to make changes. I had to make changes. One big change that we made is we moved Nick Ammirati from coaching third base to the dugout to be with the players. And it brought me to third base. I started coaching third base on May 15, 2022. I started coaching third base and I put ammunition in there. You can’t make this stuff up. I surrendered. I surrendered.”

Ammirati’s absence will certainly cause a domino effect, as he was the lead recruiter for many incoming players (freshmen and transfers). Nick Mingione and the administration will now quickly find a replacement.