Sam Briend Coached Brett DeGagne in Minnesota, Now The Two Are Building Future Yankees Stars Together

Bridgewater, New Jersey - After an injury-plagued collegiate career and a brief professional baseball stint in the independent ranks, Sam Briend returned to his alma mater to begin his coaching career.

Briend served as the pitching coach for Oglethorpe University, a small Division lll school of 1,500 students outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Meanwhile, he pursued a certification in Strength and Conditioning and served as the school’s head strength coach. To make ends meet, he stocked shelves at Ralph Lauren and Sports Authority, and cold-called potential clients for an apartment rental service.

Clamoring for an opportunity to advance his coaching career, Briend put the tenacity developed as a salesman to good use, sending cold emails to summer ball coaches around the nation. One of them landed in the inbox of Augie Rodriguez, then entering his third season as the Manager of the St. Cloud Rox of the Northwoods League, a college summer baseball wooden bat league in the Upper Midwest.

“When I read his email, I could tell he genuinely cared,” Rodriguez recalled. “He had a passion and wanted to inspire players of all ages to be great…. He wasn't in this business for the dollars.”

Briend had found the opportunity he’d been searching for, and shipped up from Georgia to St. Cloud, Minnesota to serve as the Rox Pitching Coach for the 2015 season.

It didn't take long for Briend to stand out. On the seven-hour drive from St. Cloud, Minnesota to Kenosha, Wisconsin ahead of the Rox opening day battle with the Kenosha Kingfish, as the players and coaches got acquainted, Briend, a skinny, goofy, charismatic coach with a scruffy goatee, made quite an impression.

“He sang karaoke,” Rodriguez recalled. Briend added, “There's a 95% chance it was ‘Damnit' by Blink-182.”

Briend caught the pitching staff’s attention beyond his bus trip singing. Pairing his background in strength and conditioning with his knowledge of baseball, Briend educated pitchers on the bigger picture; the art of pitch tunneling and the mental side of pitching, placed an emphasis on bullpens and pitch tracking, had pitchers throw “short-box” bullpens from 55 ft to work on secondary offerings, and implemented weighted ball programs for those that sought it out, propelling his Rox team to post a league-best 3.19 ERA, nearly an entire run less than league average.

Rodriguez likened Briend to a professor. “He taught terms that were amazing, he talked about the delivery, he broke it down where it was simple,” Rodriguez added. “And his students bought in, that was the beauty. They were excited to throw bullpens, and catchers were excited to see the results.”

One player took a particular interest in Briend’s methods. Brett DeGagne had just wrapped up his junior campaign at the University of North Dakota and became enamored by the quirky drills and routines. “He’s probably the best pitching coach I ever had,” DeGagne said of Briend. “I tried to learn as much as I could from him.”

Prior to working with Briend, DeGagne had been disappointed in his results on the mound the prior spring at UND, and entered his final collegiate season looking for something that could take his game to the next level. Briend was the answer. “He gave me something that I actually liked and believed in,” DeGagne said. “I tried to learn as much as I could from him at the time for my own sake of performing better.”

DeGagne and Briend became two peas in a pod. DeGagne picked Briend’s brain on the team’s long bus rides through the Midwest, and according to Rodriguez the two even became throwing partners. Little did they know that one day their friendship would contribute to the major league success of the New York Yankees.

With the aid of Briend, DeGagne posted a perfect 4-0 record with a 2.70 ERA in 16 games, dueling with fellow Rox including current Rockies reliever Lucas Gilbreath and Marlins reliever Zach Pop.

“That was the most fun I've ever had playing baseball,” said DeGagne. “We had an electric team, 15 or 16 guys went on to play affiliated baseball off of that roster, we won, we were really good, and it was a really good group to be a part of.”

The 2015 St. Cloud Rox finished their season 49-23, runners-up in the NWL, and people took notice. Among them was Demetre Kokoris, currently a Pitching Coach in the Texas Rangers organization, who at the time was the pitching coach for the Rox rival Rochester Honkers. Kokoris was heavily involved in a startup called Driveline Baseball, now regarded as the premier data-driven baseball player development organization in the world. Kokoris introduced Briend to Driveline founder and owner Kyle Boddy and CEO Mike Rathwell. From there, Briend caught his big break. He was hired by Driveline to head their pitching development program in Seattle, crediting his summer success which placed him on the map.

DeGagne returned to UND for what would be the program’s final season due to budget cuts, where he posted a 4.71 ERA in 72.2 IP before his playing career ended with a spiral fracture in his shoulder, which was broken in two places.

Upon graduation, DeGagne accepted a coaching position at St. Cloud State, a Division ll program near his hometown of Sauk Rapids. Now looking to build his career as a coach, his relationship with Briend only grew stronger.

“I was just using him as a mentor, picking his brain on things,” DeGagne said. “I was trying to use him the best I could, trying to lean on him as much as possible… I just completely exhausted that relationship.”

Ahead of the 2019 season, DeGagne moved to a new job as the Pitching Coach at Northern Iowa Community College in Mason, Iowa. The NIACC Trojans went 32-26 in DeGagne’s first and only season in 2019, finishing as runners-up in Region 11.

Meanwhile at Driveline, Briend became one of the most highly respected minds in the game of baseball. The Yankees hired the 31-year-old Briend in July 2019 as their Director of Pitching, just months before they brought on 34-year-old Matt Blake as the team’s pitching coach.

When the Yankees were looking for a pitching coach at the team’s Latin American Academy in the Dominican Republic, Briend knew who to recommend.

“I was like ‘this guy is perfect,’” Briend said. “(DeGagne) was hungry, he was eager, he’d always been curious. Those are the things you look for in a coach because a lot of the technical stuff you can teach.”

It was going to take some convincing. Not only did DeGagne have interest from numerous big-league organizations, he’d only lived in Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota. To pick up and move to the Dominican Republic without knowing a lick of Spanish was a big ask. “At the time it wasn't something I was crazy excited about,” DeGagne admitted. “I’m a midwest kid… I was like, ‘Man am I going to be able to hack it down there’… Like everything involving Sam I put my trust in him.”

DeGagne’s time at the Yankees Latin American Academy in Boca Chica was cut short due to COVID, but those three months ended up serving as the big break in his coaching career. “That was the best thing I could have done,” DeGagne said. “I really wish I could've been able to see that whole year through because I think it would have done me more good.”

Over the next three seasons, DeGagne climbed the ladder of the Yankees organization, serving as the pitching coach of the Class-A Tampa Tarpons in 2021, and rookie-level FCL Yankees in 2022 and 2023. DeGagne guided the Baby Bombers to a Complex League Championship in 2022, and in both seasons his FCL squad led the league in strikeouts.

“To come in as a D.R. coach and then constantly move up these levels, it's like watching one of the players grow,” Briend said.

Cut to Opening Day 2024, and DeGagne is the Pitching Coach for the Yankees Double-A affiliate Somerset Patriots. At his side in the dugout is Briend, who remains in his role overseeing pitcher development in the Yankees farm system. During the season, Briend visits all of the Yankees affiliates from the Bronx all the way down to the Dominican Republic. But his stops every few weeks in Somerset are especially sweet, giving him a chance to yet again play catch with his mentee and reminisce on a memorable 2015 summer.

“He was the guy I leaned on the most and it all comes to fruition now,” DeGagne said. “I’m super grateful for all of the work and time that he lent me in a time when he didn't have to. We've had a great relationship since 2015 and that's continued to roll. He’s just as helpful and gracious with his time as he ever has been.”