Manager Pat Kelly Returns To Lead Bats In 2025

In conjunction with the Cincinnati Reds, the Louisville Bats today announced the 2025 on-field coaching staff, led by returning Manager Pat Kelly.

The full coaching staff for the 2025 Louisville Bats is below:

• Manager: Pat Kelly (6^th season with Bats)
• Hitting Coach: Daryle Ward (1^st season with Bats)
• Pitching Coach: Reid Cornelius (1^st season with Bats)
• Coach: Bryan LaHair (2^nd season with Bats)
• Coach: Julio Morillo (1^st season with Bats)
• Athletic Trainer: Steve Gober (10^th season with Bats)
• Athletic Trainer: Wade Hebrink (1^st season with Bats)
• Strength & Conditioning Coach: Kyle Laughlin (2^nd season with Bats)
• Video & Technology Specialist: Nick Mundy (2^nd season with Bats)

Kelly returns for his sixth season at the helm in Louisville after etching his name into the history books in 2024. With a 3-2 win over St. Paul on July 11, 2024, Kelly became the seventh manager in Minor League Baseball history to win 2,000 games. He is the third active manager (as of the 2024 season) to reach the 2,000-win plateau after Buddy Bailey (Myrtle Beach) and Rick Sweet (Nashville).

With 67 wins last season, Kelly became the second skipper in Louisville history to record 300 wins and he now sits second in Louisville history with 320 wins, behind only Sweet’s 539, a franchise record. Entering 2025, Kelly holds a 320-405 record as the Bats’ manager and a 2,022-2172 career record.

Kelly began his managerial career in 1986 with the Single-A Charleston Rainbows and has since managed 17 different affiliates across every level of Minor League Baseball, as well as two stints as the bench coach at the Major League level for the Reds. The 69-year-old has spent nearly four decades managing in the minor leagues for 16 teams, including Richmond (2003-05), Syracuse (1999-2000), Ottawa (1997-98), Harrisburg (1995-96), Chattanooga (1993-94), Indianapolis (1991-92), Rockford (1991), Las Vegas (1990), Wichita (1988-89), Reno (1987) and Charleston (1986). Kelly began his professional baseball career as a 17-year-old rookie ball player in 1973 and went on to play in three Major League games for the 1980 Toronto Blue Jays.

Ward, 49, joins the Bats for his first season in Louisville after spending the past two seasons in the same role for Double-A Chattanooga. The 2025 season will be his 10^th as a coach in the Reds’ system after joining the organization as the hitting coach for the rookie level AZL Reds in 2016. Since then, he’s coached for High-A Dayton and Chattanooga. The son of two-time Major League All-Star Gary Ward, Daryle was a .263 hitter over 11 Major League seasons from 1998-2008 between the Astros, Dodgers, Pirates, Nationals, Cubs, and Braves. His 22-year playing career came to an end after spending the 2015 season in the independent Atlantic League.

Cornelius, 52, begins his first season in the Reds organization in Louisville after spending the past three seasons as the Major League bullpen coach for the Colorado Rockies. The 2025 season will mark his 36th season in professional baseball. The native of Thomasville, Alabama pitched in 12 pro seasons, including 45 Major League appearances over parts of three seasons for the Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins, and New York Mets from 1995-2000. He went on to coach in the Marlins’ system from 2003-16, spending the final seven years (2010-16) as the Major League bullpen coach. After that, he served as the pitching coach for Triple-A Gwinnett in the Braves’ organization from 2017-18 and rejoined the Marlins organization in 2019, working with Single-A Jupiter from 2019-20 and as the rehab pitching coach in 2021 before heading to Colorado in 2022.

LaHair, 42, returns for his second season in Louisville and eighth in the Reds organization. Before joining the Bats in 2024, he served as the manager at High-A Dayton from 2022-23. He began his coaching career as the hitting coach for Rookie-Level Billings in 2018 and managed the Mustangs to the playoffs the next year. As a player, LaHair spent parts of three seasons in the big leagues from 2008-2012 and was named a National League All-Star for the Chicago Cubs in 2012. He also spent a season in Japan with Softbank in 2013 and finished his 14-year playing career in the Atlantic League in 2017.

Morillo, 32, joins the Bats coaching staff after a brief stint in Louisville as a player. In August 2015, Morillo spent a week on the Louisville roster, appearing in one game for the Bats on August 9 at Durham in his only career appearance at the Triple-A level. The 2015 season was his final one as a player after a six-year career as a catcher. The 2025 season is Morillo’s sixth in the Reds player development department. He spent the last two seasons as the Manager for Single-A Daytona, leading the Tortugas to the playoffs last season. After his playing career, he spent five years as a baseball operations assistant and Spanish language translator for the Major League team.

Gober, 49, starts his 10^th season in the organization, all with the Bats, making him the longest tenured Athletic Trainer in Louisville franchise history. During the pandemic season in 2020, he worked at the Reds’ alternate training site in Mason, Ohio. For three seasons from 2013-2015 he was an assistant athletic trainer on the Washington Nationals’ Major League staff after serving the previous seven seasons (2006-2012) as that organization’s minor league medical and rehabilitation coordinator. Gober also has been involved in the development and implementation of rehab programs for Major League players. Gober played golf and baseball at Shenandoah University while earning a degree in kinesiology/sports medicine in 1998.

Hebrink enters his ninth season in the organization and first with the Bats. He spent the 2024 season as an Assistant Athletic Trainer at the Major League level for the Reds. He previously worked as a Minor League Minor League athletic trainer for Double-A Chattanooga (2023), High-A Dayton (2022), Single-A Daytona (2021), Rookie-level Arizona (2019), and in the Dominican Summer League (2017-18). In 2021 for Low-A Daytona, Hebrink was awarded the Low-A Southeast Athletic Trainer of the Year Award. He earned his bachelor’s degree in athletic training from the University of Northern Iowa in 2014 and his master’s degree in exercise science from Syracuse University in 2016.

Laughlin starts his eighth season in professional baseball, his sixth in the Reds organization and second with Louisville. He spent the 2021 and 2022 campaigns at Single-A Daytona and 2023 at Double-A Chattanooga. A 2017 graduate of Indiana University, Laughlin spent the 2019 season as a strength and conditioning coach for the Rangers’ Dominican Summer League affiliate.

Nick Mundy is back for his second season as the Bats’ Video & Technology Specialist in his third season in the Reds organization.

The Bats open the 2025 season at Louisville Slugger Field on Friday, March 28 at 7:05 p.m. against the Memphis Redbirds, Triple-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.