Brewers' pitching department earns high marks after Giants' latest coaching hire

In 2025, the Milwaukee Brewers' pitching department's brilliance was on full display as the teams' starting depth was tested early on in the season. With injuries to Nestor Cortes and Aaron Civale popping up in the first two weeks of the season, adding to the spring training injuries suffered by Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, and Tobias Myers keeping them off the mound for the early parts of the 2026 season, the Brewers' starting staff was in dire straits.

As a result, called upon after his early season assignment to the bullpen was eventual postseason hero Chad Patrick to help weather the storm, which he did admirably. The creative acquisition of Quinn Priester, who had a 2025 to remember himself, helped bolster the rotation as well. In late April, just days after José Quintana joined the rotation after an extended Spring Training, the Crew recalled Logan Henderson from Triple-A Nashville, who went on to make five important and impressive starts throughout the season.

This is all before a month of May during which the Brewers' pitching staff was in constant flux. Between Tobias Myers being recalled and optioned twice, Woodruff nearly making his return but experiencing several frustrating injuries, Hall, Ashby, and Civale returning from the injured list and Quintana landing on it, and Craig Yoho, Elvis Peguero, Bryan Hudson, Easton McGee, Carlos Rodriguez, and Henderson all making appearances from the Nashville Sounds' roster, the Brewers relied heavily on their pitching depth to stay afloat during the early parts of the season.

While the Brewers' major league pitching coaches get plenty of love (though still not enough) for their incredible work navigating said depth, what is talked about far less is the coach on the other side of the phone, handling the situation from the Nashville Sounds' dugout. This past season, balancing all of the aforementioned roster movement while continuing to guide the workload of one Jacob Misiorowski, was Justin Meccage, the Sounds' pitching coach.

All the while, Meccage helped lead the Sounds, who often featured many of the names above, either on rehab assignments or when the big-league staff became overcrowded, to a 41-34 record as the head of the pitching staff. For his efforts, Meccage was just awarded a spot as the pitching coach on Tony Vitello and Buster Posey's new coaching staff in San Francisco, as reported by FanSided's Robert Murray.

San Francisco Giants hire Nashville Sounds' 2025 pitching coach, Justin Meccage, for same role on their big league coaching staff

Meccage is no stranger to the big leagues, as you may have discerned from the several pictures of him in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform throughout this article. He was the assistant pitching coach for the Pirates in the 2018 and 2019 seasons, and then served as the team's bullpen coach for the following five seasons. After he was let go at the end of the 2024 season, Meccage became the Nashville Sounds pitching coach for the 2025 campaign.

His role in Nashville, however, isn't Meccage's only connection to the Brewers' organization. He also happens to be the uncle of Milwaukee's 2024 2nd round draft pick, Bryce Meccage, as keenly pointed out by Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. Bryce, as noted by McCalvy below, has climbed to the 15th spot on MLB Pipeline's Top 30 Brewers prospects list after a debut season in 2025, during which he posted a solid 4.35 ERA in 19 starts in Low-A at just 19 years old.

Justin now heads to San Francisco, where President of Baseball Operations, Posey, and recently-named manager, Vitello, continue to build out their new coaching staff. Vitello used to be the head coach at the University of Tennessee, where he coached two Brewers first-round picks, Blake Burke and Andrew Fischer, in each of the last two seasons.

It's a sizable and well-earned promotion for Meccage, whose expert leadership of the Sounds' pitching staff in 2025 while navigating the impact of the countless injuries to the big league roster should impress any organization looking for a pitching coach. Additionally, it's certainly a testament to the expertise of the Brewers' pitching department as a whole, who no doubt were integral to the success that Meccage achieved in 2025.

The Brewers will now have to decide whether to stay in-house, with options like Josh Spence, who has impressed in his two seasons as the Biloxi Shuckers' pitching coach, Tyler Thornburg, who joined him as an assistant in 2025, and Michael O'Neill, who led the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers' pitching staff last year, all being great options, or if they look externally to replace Meccage on Rick Sweet's staff.