Detroit Tigers pitching coach Chris Fetter has withdrawn his name from consideration for the vacant head coaching position at the University of Michigan.
Manager A.J. Hinch told The Athletic and other reporters in Boston that Fetter was staying “right where he belongs.”
Erik Bakich left Michigan last week after 10 years as head coach to take the helm at Clemson University. Fetter served as an assistant under Bakich from 2017-2020. He’s been the Tigers’ pitching coach since being hired to Hinch’s first staff in November of 2020.
Fetter, 36, is a native of Indiana who was a standout pitcher for the Wolverines, graduating in 2009. He was selected by the San Diego Padres that summer in the ninth round of the MLB draft. He spent four seasons in the Padres’ minor-league system before being released, but it was with the Padres that he first met Hinch, who was then a rising young executive in the club’s front office.
Fetter, like all Tigers assistant coaches, generally is not made available to the media.
“We love Fett. He’s very talented. He can do anything at this level, or certainly the college level. We have to do everything we can to keep him. He’s a big part of what we’re doing,” Hinch said last week when Fetter’s name first surfaced as a possible candidate.
Hinch is no stranger to mid-season coaching departures.
Last summer, assistant hitting coach Jose Cruz Jr. was named head coach at Rice University in June. Third base coach Chip Hale was hired as head coach at the University of Arizona in July.