Texas A&M hires Jim Schlossnagle away from TCU as new head baseball coach

Texas A&M moved on from longtime baseball coach Rob Childress last month, and wasted little time finding his replacement. After a brief courtship with Texas Tech coach (and Tech alum) Tim Tadlock, A&M has officially hired TCU’s Jim Schlossnagle to take the helm in Aggieland. The story was broken by D1baseball’s Kendall Rogers (an Aggie, coincidentally) late Tuesday night.

According to Rogers, the hiring of Schlossnagle will be accompanied by a significant budget to fill out the rest of the coaching staff as well.

“The Aggies are making a strong financial commitment to the program, and the long-time head coach is expected to have an excellent, highly acclaimed coaching staff with the expected assistant salary. Look for some high-profile names who are currently playing in the NCAA postseason to be part of his staff.”

Schloss’s resume at TCU speaks for itself, taking a program that had made only two NCAA Tournament appearances (and never winning a regional) to 15 NCAA Tournaments, seven Super Regionals and five College World Series appearances. It should be noted that just like A&M, the Frogs have not won a regional since 2017, but unlike A&M, TCU just won a regular season and tournament conference championship in 2021. And while TCU hold the CWS appearance edge 5-2 during Schloss’s tenure, perhaps the even bigger difference comes once the teams got to Omaha, with TCU winning a total of 11 games in their five appearances, and the Aggies failing to win any games in their two trips.

In addition to his overall success, his Horned Frogs program has been a thorn in the side of the Aggies on their path to Omaha (and even once they got there). TCU defeated A&M on their way to winning the College Station Regional in 2012, beat the Aggies in Super Regionals in back-to-back years in 2015 and 2016, and beat them when both teams made it to the College World Series in 2017. While this is a home run hire either way, this may have also played a role in the A&M brass holding Schlossnagle in such high regard.

Critics of the Rob Childress firing (there weren’t very many) said A&M would struggle to hire anyone better than him, but in Schlossnagle, they appear to have done just that. He built a program in Fort Worth that was superior to A&M’s in every measurable way despite lesser resources and virtually no winning history before he arrived. Understandably, expectations will be high in College Station with him at the helm.