Zack Thornton is in his third season at UC Davis serving as pitching coach for the Aggies.
He comes to UC Davis following stops at both the high school and collegiate levels after a seven year professional career.
Thornton attended the University of Oregon, where he was a PAC-12 Honorable Mention and a 23rd round pick by the Oakland A's in the 2010 MLB Draft. He spent two seasons in the A's system before being traded to the Pittsburg Pirates in 2012. In 2013 across three different levels in the Pirates' system, including AAA, Thornton went 7-3 with a 2.63 ERA over 42 games and 75 1/3 innings. He was named the MiLB Pittsburgh Pirates Organizational All-Star for the 2013 season and received an invite to Major League Spring Training in 2014. After starting the 2014 season 2-0 with a 1.23 ERA over 7 1/3 innings, Thornton was traded to the Mets for Ike Davis, spending the rest of the 2014 season with the AAA Las Vegas Aces. He went on to spend the 2015 and 2016 seasons with Las Vegas, going to Major League Spring Training both seasons while playing parts of two seasons with Magallanes in the Venezuelan Winter League. In 2015, he was the Set-Up Pitcher of the Year in the VWL. Thornton spent the 2017 season in independent ball, pitching 44 2/3 innings for Southern Maryland in the Atlantic League.
Thornton began his coaching career in January 2018, serving as interim head coach for Westlake High School until June 2018. That month he began an annual summer stint as pitching coach for the Santa Barbara Foresters in the California Collegiate League. Under Thornton, the Foresters won the NBC World Series in 2020 and 2021 and lowered their team ERA each season from 2.91 in 2019 to 2.20 in 2021. Eight players from Thornton's teams were selected in MLB Drafts.
From August 2018 to June 2019, Thornton served as an undergraduate assistant at his alma mater in Eugene where five players were drafted over that span. Most recently, Thornton was the recruiting coordinator and pitching coach at Ventura College where he has served since Aug. 2020.
He completed his B.S. in sociology from Oregon in June of 2020.
