Why new pitching coach Matt Williams and USC baseball could be the perfect marriage

When left-hander Mat Batts entered his senior season at UNC Wilmington in 2014, he and the rest of the Seahawks pitching staff had a feeling of trepidation.

For the third straight year, Batts and the Seahawks had a brand new pitching coach. Turnover always raises questions: Will I get along with this guy? Does he know what he’s doing?

Almost immediately, Matt Williams put Batts’ mind at ease.

An eight-year pitching coach at junior college power Spartanburg Methodist, Williams brought a different perspective to UNCW and the Division I ranks. Batts remembers how laid-back he was and easy to talk to, how he took the time to understand what made each pitcher on his staff tick. When Williams needed to step in and be more hands on with his pitchers, he did, but he also wanted his pitchers to trust themselves and pitch like themselves.

Not only did Batts excel under Williams, he found another gear on the mound. The lefty ace posted a career-best 2.69 ERA in 103.2 innings, won conference pitcher of the year and even heard his name called by the Minnesota Twins in the 17th round of the 2014 MLB Draft.

“I think in a way, it sort of was a blessing to have a new approach and sort of a fresh set of eyes coming into my final year at Wilmington,” Batts told The State. “(Williams) was able to come in and see small things mechanically that I was able to clean up a little bit. He was always great about pitch sequencing.

“I started throwing a little cutter my senior year … and that was something that he really helped me with being able to throw it really in any count and be confident with it.”

Batts’ award-winning season was no fluke. Much the opposite, it was the start of a trend. Batts is one four pitchers to win conference pitcher of the year awards under Williams since 2014 — three at UNCW and one at Liberty. In 18 years as a pitching coach, Williams has had 35 pitchers sign professional contracts.

Now, Mark Kingston and the Gamecocks are hopeful Williams can work that same sort of magic with the South Carolina pitching staff.

After a four-year stint at Liberty, Williams returns to his home state to coach USC’s pitchers. He replaces two-year coach Justin Parker, who left for the vacated pitching coach role at Mississippi State. Though Parker is a tough act to follow — he led USC’s staff to the nation’s 12th-best ERA (4.19) in 2023 — Williams is the kind of pitching coach who has gotten the best out of his arms everywhere he’s been.

Given his lengthy resume, Williams’ leap to a Power Five school was only a matter of a time. And as someone who grew up in South Carolina and went to Lancaster High School, his landing with the Gamecocks could be the perfect marriage.

“The guy’s phenomenal,” Liberty head coach Scott Jackson told The State. “I wasn’t naive. I knew we were gonna fight every summer to keep him here, and he’s just incredibly loyal.

“And I think there’s one, maybe two places he would have left here for. .... He’s really the perfect guy for the job down there.”

The ‘trust factor’

Liberty’s historic 2021 season — a program-best 41-16 record — ended in a 3-1 loss to Tennessee during NCAA Tournament regional play. Jackson remembers going to the press conference after that game and sitting next to his starting pitcher, Fraser Ellard.

A few months before, Jackson would never have imagined seeing Ellard in that situation.

“He was very hard-headed,” Jackson said. “He kind of liked to do things one way and thought he had some things figured out, and him and Matt probably butted heads a little bit.

“And he had some failure, and Matt helped him fight through it. And next thing you know, he’s starting a game for us in a regional against Tennessee, the last game of our season in 2021.”

In their four years of working together at Liberty, Jackson said what struck him most about Williams was how observant he is. He gets to know his pitchers intimately, understanding how they think, how they train and learn. Sometimes, he knows the best way for his players to learn is by letting them fail. That’s what he did with Ellard, before working with him to recapture his confidence.

After that 2021 season, Ellard joined the Chicago White Sox organization as an eighth-round pick.

“If I don’t have a good relationship with the guys then it’s not gonna go very well,” Williams said. “So I think that’s the No. 1 thing … and then from there, it’s really good to know the guy, the individual and how they learn.

“Some guys learn in the weight room. Some guys learn with us just talking mechanics. Some guys can learn in the bullpen. Some guys can learn with metrics, so it’s really just getting to know each individual guy.”

Though relationships are paramount to him, there’s a science behind what Williams teaches, too. He preaches attacking the plate, and he works with the pitchers to identify the pitches that will be most effective in the strike zone. Data factors into that identification, with radar systems like Trackman tracking the movement, velocity, spin rate of pitches in real-time.

In between stints at UNCW and Liberty, Williams spent 2019 with the San Diego Padres in a variety of roles, starting as an international crosschecker in the scouting department before transitioning to pitching coach at the team’s Fort Wayne, Indiana, minor league affiliate.

During that time, he learned how to incorporate analytics into his coaching.

“He’s very well-versed, very smart,” Jackson said. “And he knows when to make changes, and, ‘Hey, we’re just gonna ride with this pitch or, hey you know what, we’re just gonna stick with the fastball here.’ He just does a really good job of using that information and not really letting the pitchers kind of get the paralysis by analysis. ‘Here’s what your ball says, and we’re gonna simplify it and just attack the plate.’

“If he said ‘attack the plate’ once, he said it a gazillion times here.”

Still, there were other adjustments Williams would make that had nothing to do with technology or data and more to do with listening. When lefty Trevor DeLaite came to Liberty in 2021 as a grad transfer, Williams learned that DeLaite took a little longer to recover than the typical pitcher. So Williams dialed back DeLaite’s bullpen sessions in between starts — something he learned from his time in pro ball — and trusted DeLaite’s preparation.

Not only did DeLaite go on to win conference pitcher of the year, but he set a program record with 12 wins and earned national pitcher of the year consideration with his 2.17 ERA. He wasn’t a flamethrower — he rarely cracked 90 mph — but he and Williams were in sync from the very first game of the season.

“I just don’t know that that happens if (DeLaite) goes anywhere else,” Jackson said. “Just because of what Matt saw in him and the fact that they trusted each other so much.

“That trust factor is going to be a big thing that Matt’s gonna want to establish between himself and every pitcher down there in Gamecock land.”

South Carolina ties

Even though she’s a South Carolina graduate herself, Denton Williams was caught off guard by the way Gamecocks fans yelled at UNCW players and coaches in the 2016 Columbia Regional.

At that point, Williams was in his third year as Seahawks pitching coach and would soon marry Denton.

“She’d always been on the side where fans were hollering at the other coach, and, all of a sudden, they were hollering at me,” Williams said, laughing. “And she wasn’t a big fan of that. She was actually my fiancee at that time.

“And I told her, ‘Hey, if we’re gonna get married, then you need to know this. You have to get some thicker skin because I want to be in moments like this at some point. Hopefully on the other side, though.”

The Gamecock dream is one that’s been simmering for quite some time for Williams. He was in the running for Parker’s job, who the Gamecocks hired two years ago when then-pitching coach Skylar Meade left for Troy. When Williams heard from Kingston this time around, he said it was an easy decision.

Williams is a Palmetto State product through and through and a baseball lifer. He played for his father at Lancaster High and used that experience to help lead Spartanburg Methodist to the JUCO World Series both as a player and then as pitching coach and recruiting coordinator. Through recruiting at a junior college for eight years, Williams created a plethora of connections throughout the state, and those connections could come in handy for the Gamecocks.

USC projects to lose its entire starting rotation, with Noah Hall, Will Sanders and Jack Mahoney all likely to be selected in July’s MLB Draft. Though USC has high-quality arms returning like Matthew Becker and Eli Jones, the staff still has work to do in order to flesh out the rest of the unit and add depth. Williams said during his introductory press conference that he’s already working the transfer portal and has been in contact with recruiting coordinator Monte Lee about “eight times a day.”

Another South Carolina baseball lifer, Lee actually briefly coached Williams when he was a player at Spartanburg Methodist and they have a relationship that spans two decades.

Though Williams will primarily serve as pitching coach, his recruiting ability shouldn’t be overlooked.

“I don’t really think anybody realizes just how connected he is in the state,” Jackson said. “I mean, Monte Lee and Matt Williams — that’s about as good as it gets with that kind of combination for the state of South Carolina and the flagship school there.

“There’s nothing that’s gonna slip by either one of those two guys.”

With the transfer portal already humming, the Gamecocks are still very much in the process of building next year’s pitching staff, and Williams has work to do to get to know his new pitchers and build the kind of relationships he prioritizes in his coaching.

But by all accounts, the transition should be a smooth one as Williams returns home.

“The place is dear to me because I grew up in the state,” Williams said. “My wife went to school here, and I just really appreciate the opportunity that coach Kingston has given me to come back here and coach the pitchers. So really looking forward to that.

“It’s very humbling to come back and work in your home state and get that opportunity as a pitching coach and do what you love doing.”