Mets pluck assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel from Yankees

The Mets are attempting to improve their pitching department by reportedly plucking from the Yankees.Desi Druschel, who had served as Yankees assistant pitching coach since 2022, has been hired for the same role in Queens, SNY reported Monday.The Mets and Yankees did not confirm the development, which reportedly will see Druschel work underneath pitching coach Jeremy Hefner after six seasons in pinstripes.The Yankees lured Druschel away from the University of Iowa — where he was pitching coach — in 2019, when he became the organization’s first minor league manager of pitch development.

He was promoted to the major league staff after the 2021 season and had worked below Matt Blake in what has been an impressive pipeline for maximizing pitching arms.Druschel has a history with Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, the two overlapping on the same major league staff in The Bronx from 2022-23.He also has a relationship with Mets vice president of pitching Eric Jagers, who was a pitcher at Iowa when Druschel was pitching coach.The Mets had poached a Yankees pitching mind last winter, too, when they turned the Double-A Somerset pitching coach, Grayson Crawford, into their pitching coach at Triple-A Syracuse....