Grading the Hire of James Ramsey To Be The Next Georgia Tech Baseball Coach

Jun 1, 2025; Oxford, MS, USA; Georgia Tech Yellowjackets first baseman Kent Schmidt (10) reacts as he returns to the dugout after a home run during the first inning against the Mississippi Rebels. Mandatory Credit: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images | Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

Georgia Tech has a new baseball coach, but it is a very familiar face. Associate head coach James Ramsey was officially promoted to head coach today and he will be taking over for long-time head coach Danny Hall. This does not come as a huge surprise if you follow this program, as Ramsey has been the rumored replacement for a few years now, but it is officially his program and he will look to lead Georgia Tech to the top of college baseball.

While this was an expected move, was it a wise move for Georgia Tech? Let's dig into the pro/cons of this hire for Georgia Tech.

Pros

Ramsey is plenty familiar with the program and the players love him. In this day and age of the transfer portal, that is a big deal. While it is not the only reason you should be looking to hire a coach, his ability to coach the players and keep the best ones in Atlanta will be huge for the Yellow Jackets.

It is not just the recruiting aspect though. There is a reason he was one of the top assistants in the country.

In seven seasons since Ramsey’s arrival on The Flats as hitting coach in 2019, Georgia Tech leads the ACC in batting average (.308), hits (3,961), doubles (796), on-base percentage (.408), OPS (.918) and sacrifice flies (208), and ranks second in runs (2,937), triples (84), home runs (547), RBI (2,709) and slugging percentage (.510).

Since he took over as the Yellow Jackets’ recruiting coordinator following the 2019 season, Tech has landed four top-5 and five top-10 signing classes, and all six have ranked among the top 20 nationally. The Jackets’ most recent class in 2024 was ranked No. 2 nationally by Perfect Game, the highest-rated class in Tech history.

Under Ramsey’s tutelage, seven Tech hitters have been named all-America and five have earned freshman all-America recognition. He’s also coached three semifinalists for each of college baseball’s premier National Player of the Year awards – the Golden Spikes Award (Kevin Parada – 2022, Drew Burress – 2024 and 2025 and Kyle Lodise – 2025) and the Dick Howser Award (Kyle McCann – 2019, Parada – 2022 and Burress – 2024). Recruited and developed by Ramsey, Burress was named National Freshman of the Year in ’24.

Most recently, Ramsey was an integral part of Georgia Tech’s run to the 2025 ACC regular-season championship, Tech’s first since 2011. The Yellow Jackets featured one of the nation’s most potent offenses in ’25, highlighted by leading the nation with 149 doubles. Tech also rank among the Power Four-conference leaders in batting average (.315 – second), hits (632 – fourth), runs per game (8.4 – fourth), on-base percentage (.416 – fifth) and slugging percentage (.540 – fifth).

Ramsey has the bonafides to be the coach at a program like Georgia Tech. He can recruit and develop talent from the high school ranks and get talent from the transfer portal.

Cons

There are not a lot of obvious negatives to hiring Ramsey, but the fact of the matter is that he has never been a head coach before, let alone one at one of the best college baseball programs in the country. While there was plenty of frustration with Danny Hall not being able to get Georgia Tech back to the College World Series, he consistently had Georgia Tech in the Tournament and among the best teams in the country. As highly-regarded as Ramsey is, that is far from a guarantee with him until the results come in. I think he will have success, but inexperience is there.

Can he get enough pitching talent? That has been the problem for quite a while for Georgia Tech, although this staff was pretty good up until the NCAA Tournament. The offense should never be the problem at Georgia Tech but how can Ramsey get more out of the pitching staff when it matters most? If he can, this should be a tremendous hire.

Overall Grade: A

This was the obvious choice and Ramsey makes a lot of sense and is honestly overqualified for the job. Does that guarantee success? No, but this was an easy choice for Georgia Tech to make.