Eric Niesen is the assistant coach for pitching for Wake Forest baseball in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, joining the staff before the 2026 season.
Niesen returned to Wake Forest after working for the Houston Astros, where he most recently served as director of pitching. With Houston, he helped shape the organization's pitching approach throughout the minor leagues and was part of the baseball operations group during the Astros' 2022 World Series title and the Sugar Land Space Cowboys' 2024 Triple-A national championship. Houston's minor league pitching staffs finished among the top 10 in strikeout percentage in each season from 2022 through 2024, and 13 minor league pitchers reached the majors from 2022 to 2025. Players he helped develop included Hunter Brown, Spencer Arrighetti, Colton Gordon, and Ryan Gusto.
