While Boston College baseball has seen Major League teams lure away the core of its pitching staff in the past couple weeks, the team faced yet another loss Thursday afternoon, when pitching coach Jim Foster signed on to become the new head coach of the United States Military Academy.
Welcome to Army West Point Coach Foster! #GoArmy
👉 https://t.co/OchTrpMygo pic.twitter.com/NcDRPPAYmP— ArmyWestPoint Sports (@GoArmyWestPoint) June 23, 2016
Foster spent the past two years as the pitching coach and associate head coach of the BC program, helping to develop a generally overpowered staff into the team’s greatest strength this season. Under his brief tenure, BC lowered its conference ERA from 4.75 to 3.37 and its overall ERA from 4.29 in 2014 to 3.83 this year, a mark that ranked sixth in the ACC.
His biggest accomplishment, though, was his contribution in developing Justin Dunn, BC’s shaky reliever-turned-ace in 2016. Dunn was drafted with the 19th overall pick by the New York Mets, tying him with Chris Lambert for the highest BC pitcher ever drafted. The also helped to further develop starter Mike King (Miami Marlins) and catcher Nick Sciortino (Boston Red Sox), who were drafted in the 12th and 17th rounds, respectively, this year. The three players have each decided to forego their senior seasons and sign contracts with their professional teams.
Before joining BC’s staff in the summer of 2014, Foster was the all-time winningest head coach of the University of Rhode Island, leading the team to six-straight 30-win seasons and leaving with a .538 overall record.
Foster joins a program at Army that limped to a 16-32 record this season, finishing in last place in the Patriot League. He’ll get to work with a pitching staff that finished 2016 with a cumulative 5.48 ERA, and league worsts in batting average (.251) and fielding percentage (.951).
Gambino did not say whether BC has any candidates in mind to replace Foster, though the program is likely to hire someone within the next month. In 2014, Foster was hired about a month after the former pitching coach, Scott Friedholm, left BC to become the head coach of UNC-Asheville.
Featured Image by Michael Sullivan / Heights Editor
