Griffin Barnes is in his third season on the UCLA baseball staff. He served as the program's Director of Player Development for the 2023 season before earning a promotion to Director of Baseball Operations ahead of the 2024 campaign. He was then promoted to an assistant coaching role ahead of the 2025 season.
Barnes arrived in Westwood with an extensive history as a player and coach at the high school, collegiate, and professional levels.
Barnes guided UCLA through a historic 2026 campaign, delivering what is unquestionably the greatest regular season in program history to earn Big Ten Coach of the Year honors. This marked the third Coach of the Year honor of his career. The Bruins finished 52-8, matching the program record for total wins, and their 48-6 regular-season mark stands alone as the best in school history. After opening the year as the preseason No. 1, UCLA became the first team in college baseball history to remain the nation’s top-ranked team wire-to-wire across every major poll.
In Big Ten play, the Bruins were dominant, setting a new conference record with 28 wins and clinching the regular-season title with two weekends to spare. UCLA then swept through the Big Ten Tournament, defeating Purdue, No. 25 USC, and No. 13 Oregon to capture the program’s first-ever conference tournament championship. UCLA entered the postseason as the No. 1-overall seed for the first time since 2019, hosting an NCAA Regional for the second straight season.
UCLA turned in a banner year in 2025 during his first season as a full-time assistant coach, claiming a share of the Big Ten regular season crown in their inaugural campaign within the conference. The Bruins piled up 48 wins, their highest mark since 2019. UCLA promptly secured their 26th NCAA Tournament berth and 14th in the last 22 seasons. Earning the No. 15 overall seed, UCLA hosted an NCAA Regional at Jackie Robinson Stadium for the first time in six years and made the most of it, sweeping through the bracket with authority. They followed that up by hosting and winning the NCAA Super Regional, dispatching UTSA in consecutive games to punch their sixth ticket to the Men's College World Series.
During their momentous 2025 campaign, the Bruins notched an impressive array of achievements that defined the season. UCLA finished as the seventh ranked defense in the nation with a team fielding percentage of .982. The Bruins led the country in double plays with 66 while Roch Cholowsky and Mulivai Levu headlined the spectacular defense, earning ABCA/Rawlings Gold Gloves at their respective positions. This was the first time two UCLA players received Gold Glove honors in the same season. The Bruins proved to be one of the most prolific offenses in the nation, finishing in the top-25 nationally for runs scored and hits.
He was a three-year letterwinner at Grand Canyon University from 2015-18, serving as team captain in his junior and senior seasons. He was the Lopes’ primary catcher in the 2018 season, hitting .285 for the year with 17 RBIs. He had a blistering start to that season, batting .361 through his first 26 games.
After graduating from GCU, Barnes signed as an undrafted free agent with the Los Angeles Angels organization. He spent time with the Orem Owlz and AZL Angels at the rookie-ball level that summer. He went on to make Independent League stops with Monterey, Rocky Mountain, and Saltillo from 2019-22. His high-water mark in Indy ball came with the Rocky Mountain Vibes of the Pioneer League in 2021, slashing .307/.337/.426 over 76 games.
On the coaching side, Barnes has made stops as an assistant volunteer coach at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif., and as assistant coach for the varsity baseball team at Esperanza High School in Yorba Linda, Calif. His main emphasis at La Sierra was skill development with the team’s pitchers and catchers.