Drew Finley named Director of Player Development, Video and Scouting for UGA baseball

ATHENS, Ga. — Drew Finley has been named the Director of Player Development, Video and Scouting, Georgia head baseball coach Wes Johnson announced Monday.

Following a six-year professional baseball career, Finley earned an undergraduate degree in sports management while working with the LSU baseball program from 2021-2024. The 29-year-oled Finley comes to Georgia after spending the past season as the pitching coach for Nicholls State.

“Drew was my bullpen coach at LSU, and last year, it was good for him to take on his own staff as the pitching coach at Nicholls State,” Johnson said. “He’s really sharp with a good pitching mind and has been around the game all his life. He was a really good player who signed professionally out of high school and knows the pro scene including analytics.”

Finley was a student assistant on LSU’s 2023 national championship team including working with Johnson and a host of professional prospects including the number one overall draft pick that year in Paul Skenes, another first rounder in Ty Floyd and second round pick Grant Taylor. During the 2024 season, he served as the director of pitching development for LSU when eight Tiger pitchers were drafted including Luke Holman, Gage Jump and Thatcher Hurd as they went in the first three rounds. Along with Johnson, he worked with pitching coaches Jason Kelly and Nate Yeskie during his time at LSU. 

Finley, a native of San Diego, Calif., was a third-round pick of the New York Yankees in the 2015 First-Year Player Draft out of Rancho Bernardo High School. In his second season and debut with the Staten Island Yankees, Finley tossed a no-hitter, which was just the second in franchise history. In November 2018, he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for outfielder Tim Locastro. He retired from professional baseball in 2021.

His prep highlights include setting a California D1 state single-game record with 20 strikeouts, pitched the winning game at the Perfect Game All-American Classic, and was ranked as the 24th, 57th, and 61st best prospect in the 2015 MLB Draft by Keith Law, MLB.com, and Baseball America, respectively. 

Finley’s life has always centered around baseball. The son of Los Angeles Dodgers Vice President of Amateur and International Scouting, David Finley, Drew grew up attending games of all levels across the nation, had a front row seat at spring training camps, and was given the opportunity to learn from players, coaches and team personnel.

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