Land of Enchantment: 1-on-1 with Jake Angier, New Mexico State Baseball | Ep. 115

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley sits down with Jake Angier, head baseball coach at New Mexico State University, during week two of fall practice in Las Cruces. Angier is in his 18th year of coaching, with stops under Tod Brown, Reggie Christiansen at Sacramento State, and Mark Wasikowski at Oregon before taking over the Aggies.

This one is a working coach's read on the current state of college baseball: what a Division I roster actually looks like now, how fast a staff has to build relationships when players may only be there a year, which positions disappear off the recruiting board first, and what this generation of players has — and doesn't.

The highlights:

• Why players attach less to a campus now, and what a program can give them instead
• Short runways: how transient rosters changed the way a staff coaches freshmen
• A 34-man roster built for class balance, not a bench full of disgruntled seniors
• The honest odds for a high school player landing on a Division I roster
• Which positions come off the recruiting board first, and which ones wait
• Analytics as a development tool without losing the one-on-one compete
• The baseball IQ gap, and why summer exposure ball is part of the cause
• Straight advice for players and parents, plus what big leaguers have in common

Fall Ball in Las Cruces

Angier's family moved to southern New Mexico from the Pacific Northwest, and he makes the case for Las Cruces easily: the weather, the food, and blue-collar people who treat everybody the right way. It is a laid-back, slow-paced college town, and he clearly likes it there.

The baseball side is in full swing. The Aggies finished an individual phase and are into week two of the team portion of their 45-day window, with a scrimmage the next day. Angier calls it his favorite stretch of the year — school starting, football going, and a new team getting put together.

What Players Attach To Now

Angier still talks about Brookings, South Dakota, where he played and started coaching, as a place with a permanent hold on him. He is realistic that the attachment to a campus is not as common anymore, and he is not interested in being bitter about it. Things evolve; the job is to adapt and ask a better question — what can a program give a player that travels with him after he leaves?

His answer is principles and character, organized around a team mantra they call the circle of toughness, built on six attributes the staff believes define it. He frames college as the most impressionable window a young man gets: first time away from home, figuring out who he is. The payoff he is aiming at is not just baseball but how these guys operate later as husbands, fathers, and leaders.

The brotherhood piece, he says, has not changed. It may look different from one generation to the next, but the bond is still there, and it is on each program to build an environment that encourages it.

Short Runways, Faster Relationships

Eighteen years in, Angier has coached on both sides of the transfer era, and he is candid that roster churn costs you something. There are guys he wishes he had one more year with.

"The more you get to know somebody, the better chance you have to actually coach him well."

What has changed is the timeline. Twenty years ago a coach might barely pay attention to a freshman and still have a strong relationship by the player's junior year, because it grew naturally. That runway is gone. You have to get with that kid now, because you might not have him later. Angier takes it as a challenge rather than a complaint: it forces a staff to dig in early and find out quickly what makes each player tick.

Building a Balanced Roster

New Mexico State carries 34 players, and Angier deliberately spreads them across classes. He acknowledges other programs have won with rosters stacked with juniors and seniors, but he does not want 15 upperclassmen on the bench — by that point in a career, a player who is not playing is close to done, and a disgruntled senior in April is already thinking about June.

After swinging from very old to very young and back to old last season, this is the most balanced roster he has had, freshman through senior. In his view, that blend simply holds together better.

The High School Path to Division I

Angier agrees college baseball has never been better, and that the pyramid narrows as you climb. High school players may have it tougher than ever: the draft has been cut back sharply with talk of trimming it further, so fewer players are going straight to pro ball.

Position players feel it most. Given the choice between a junior with 600 college at-bats and a player with zero, the experience wins. Some programs have stopped recruiting high school position players entirely — which, Angier notes, is exactly what could push junior college baseball back to strength, and make lower-level D2 and D3 programs better landing spots for players who can develop and then move through the portal.

At the same time, the high school players coming out now are the biggest, strongest, and fastest he has seen, with velocity and exit velocities that did not exist 20 years ago.

What Comes Off the Recruiting Board First

For families trying to understand the pecking order, Angier lays it out plainly. Premium pitching goes first, then shortstops and the left side of the infield, then catchers. True center fielders belong in that premium group too.

Outfielders, first basemen, and clearly defined relievers tend to be available later — there are simply more of them. If you want the two spots that vanish fastest, he would err on starting pitching and shortstop.

The Aggies' recruiting hub is the Southwest, with roughly a third of the roster from New Mexico and Arizona plus some West Texas. Beyond that it is wide open: a pitcher from Long Island drafted in the 10th round last year, a player from the Dominican Republic, several from the Northwest where much of the staff has roots, and one from Florida.

From Pitching Coach to Head Coach

Angier's first full-time job came under Tod Brown, now the head coach at rival New Mexico, who handed him pitching responsibility young and, as he puts it, threw him to the wolves. He then spent six years at Sacramento State working for Reggie Christiansen, his college coach at South Dakota State, and later worked under Mark Wasikowski at Oregon, where he picked up much of his head-coaching perspective. He still talks with all three regularly — Christiansen about once a week.

Being a head coach was always the goal; pitching was the avenue that got him there. He also notes he was a two-way guy out of high school, an outfielder who did not become a full-time pitcher until his sophomore year of college, which he thinks left him with a position player's mentality inside a pitcher's job.

"Coaching pitchers is like — they're kickers with quarterback egos."

Analytics, Without Losing the Compete

Angier leans into analytics because that is how this generation was raised: there is real value in using data to keep arms healthy, sharpen an arsenal, build a new pitch, and develop a swing. Hitting coach David Bellamy and pitching coach Connor Dailey handle much of that work.

The balance matters, though. He does not want to be a facility program where everything is about tools and training. Between the lines it is still one-on-one, pitcher against hitter, and his phrase for it is keeping the main thing the main thing — competing. Analytics help a player know his own strengths and weaknesses; they do not replace the at-bat.

The Baseball IQ Gap

Asked what this generation lacks given how physically gifted they are, Angier does not hedge: baseball IQ, and he is careful to say it is not the players' fault.

"The way that they're playing in high school is not really conducive to learning how to play the game."

The high school season is short, and summer is built around exposure rather than winning. Pitchers throw their three innings in front of college coaches and leave, so the feel that comes from working through a seven-inning outing never develops. Specialization compounds it — pitchers who never played shortstop and never hit do not appreciate how hard hitting is.

Add the pitch clock, and the processing window shrinks further. When Angier came up, a player could step off and take two minutes to slow the game down; that option is gone. His conclusion is that college staffs have to manufacture it in practice, speeding players up and putting pressure on them so they can make good decisions in a hurry.

Advice for Players and Parents

For players: play the sport you actually love, not the one you happen to be good at.

"Your dream should really start with doing something you love, because that's what's going to get you through the tough times."

His worry is the player who stays in a sport because success kept him there, then hits real adversity without the love to carry him through — a risk he thinks grows as the game becomes more monetized and players start competing for money instead of for the game.

For parents: be supportive and stop running the rat race. Angier's own son wanted nothing to do with baseball and plays everything else, and he has enjoyed the wrestling mat and the basketball court just fine. He would rather families protect dinner together than chase another private lesson, camp, or showcase.

"If he's good enough, he's good enough, and he's going to get there. If we could all chill out a little bit as parents and let our kids be kids — play the game as a kid, not because they're trying to get a scholarship someday — that would be huge."

What the Best Ones Have in Common

Angier has played with and coached players who reached the major leagues, and the common thread surprised him less than the consistency of it.

"Every single guy that I've either coached or played with that got there was a great person."

They treat people the right way, they work, and they love the game. Most of them were not first-round picks on a pedestal — their stories involved grinding through something, and he thinks the character and the love are exactly what let them overcome it.

As for a walkout song, he never really had one: his senior year at South Dakota State the Jackrabbits won 34 games and played only four of them at home. Pressed to pick, he goes with Tom Petty — "I Won't Back Down."

Episode Timestamps

Tap any timestamp to jump the player straight to that moment.

• 0:38 — Introducing New Mexico State head baseball coach Jake Angier
• 0:59 — Why Las Cruces: the weather, the food, and the people
• 2:22 — Week two of fall team practice and the 45-day window
• 4:36 — Whether players still attach to a campus the way they once did
• 6:48 — The circle of toughness and the character work behind it
• 9:50 — Roster churn, regrets, and 18 years of coaching
• 12:37 — A 34-man roster and why class balance matters
• 15:08 — The real odds for a high school player reaching Division I
• 18:33 — What comes off the recruiting board first
• 20:10 — Tod Brown, Reggie Christiansen, and Mark Wasikowski
• 22:49 — Wanting the head job, and being a two-way guy in a pitcher's world
• 24:22 — Kickers with quarterback egos
• 25:57 — Using analytics without losing the compete
• 28:39 — The baseball IQ gap and where it comes from
• 33:04 — Whether the brotherhood is still the same
• 34:44 — The Mexican food question he did not want to answer
• 36:05 — Where New Mexico State recruits
• 38:14 — Advice for high school players
• 40:25 — Advice for parents
• 43:19 — What the guys who reach the big leagues have in common
• 44:50 — Walkout song: four home games and a Tom Petty pick

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Jake Angier is the head baseball coach at New Mexico State University and can be found on X. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.