SPRINGFIELD – Former Missouri State baseball staffer and Springfield native Jeremy Cologna is returning to the Bears as an assistant coach, head coach Joey Hawkins announced Tuesday. He will work with the MoState hitters and catchers and assist in the program’s recruiting efforts.
“Very excited to announce that we’ve brought Jeremy back to our coaching staff after a successful stint with the New York Mets organization,” Hawkins said of his newest assistant. “Jeremy and I worked extensively together during our 2022 season which led to a regional birth and an elite offense. Jeremy is hands down one of the best catching instructors in the country and I also look forward to him helping grow our offensive development and production.”
Cologna comes home to Springfield after spending the past two seasons in the New York Mets organization. He spent the 2023 season as the development coach at Double-A Binghamton, where he worked with Mets organizational defensive player of the year Hayden Senger. That fall, he was the bench coach in the Arizona Fall League and mentored first-round pick Kevin Parada.
In 2024, Cologna was the bench coach/assistant hitting coach for Low-A St. Lucie in addition to coordinating and executing the daily operations of Mets Spring Training in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Cologna spent the 2021 and 2022 seasons with the Bears as a volunteer assistant and was promoted to Director of Player Development shortly before moving to the pro ranks in the fall of 2022.
In his first stint with the Bears, he worked with the Bears’ catchers, served as first base coach, and assisted with offensive development and game planning. With Cologna’s mentorship, Drake Baldwin became the highest-drafted catcher in MSU history in 2022, going to Atlanta in the third round as the 96th overall pick.
In addition to his duties at Missouri State, Cologna was the commissioner of the Show-Me Collegiate League in the summer of 2021, a year after he was named the league Coach of the Year. He graduated from MSU with his Master’s in sports management in May 2022.
A Springfield native and Glendale High graduate, Cologna played collegiately at St. Charles Community College for two seasons before transferring to Avila University, where he pitched and played catcher for a pair of 30-win clubs in 2017 and 2018. After graduating from Avila with a business administration degree in 2019, he served as pitching coach for the Eagles during the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
Cologna replaces Dustin Williams, who recently left for an assistant job at Tarleton State in his home state of Texas.
