Welcome Back: Ortiz returns to Yankees organization to guide Renegades in 2024

Wappingers Falls, N.Y. (Jan. 26, 2024) – The New York Yankees announced their minor league field and support staffs for the 2024 season on Friday. Nick Ortiz will take over as the manager of the Hudson Valley Renegades, the Yankees High-A affiliate.

Ortiz becomes the 19^th manager in team history, and fourth in four years during the Yankees era. He is joined on the field staff by Pitching Coach Spencer Medick (2^nd season), Hitting Coach Rick Guarno (1^st season), and Defensive Coaches Derek Woodley (2^nd season) and Zak Wasserman (1^st season). The support staff is comprised of Clubhouse Manager Ryan Shute (4^th season), Athletic Trainer Adaric Kelly (1^st season), Strength & Conditioning Coach Dylan Lidge (1^st season), Video Assistant Danny Althoff (1^st season), and Advance Scouting Analyst Devin Clementi (1^st season).

“I’m very excited to be given the opportunity to manage the Hudson Valley Renegades this year, and I’m really looking forward to connecting with all our fans,” Ortiz said. “We are going to present tremendous talent on the field and I hope that you could all join us in what should be a fun and exciting season.”

Nick Ortiz

Ortiz begins his first season as the manager of the Renegades in 2024, returning for a second stint with the Yankees organization after spending the past four seasons as the Quality Assurance Coach for the San Francisco Giants. Before serving on Gabe Kapler’s staff in San Francisco, Ortiz served a dual role for four seasons in the Yankees system, serving as an Amateur Scout covering Puerto Rico and a Minor League coach. He was an assistant coach for Rookie-level Pulaski in 2016, and managed GCL Yankees West in 2017 and 2019 and Pulaski in 2018. His Pulaski roster featured six future Major Leaguers on it, including former Renegades Oswald Peraza, Everson Pereira, Ezequiel Duran and Luis Medina.

In addition to his Major and Minor League coaching experience, Ortiz has coached and managed in the prestigious Puerto Rican Winter League for the Gigantes de Carolina and the Cangrejeros de Santurce, a league in which he played in for 16 seasons (1991-93, 1996-2007 and 2012) and was a six-time All-Star.

He began his coaching career after a 15-year playing career in Minor League Baseball, playing all four infield positions in the Boston, Montreal, Cleveland, Los Angeles-NL, Kansas City, Chicago-NL, and Yankees organizations. Ortiz also played for the Puerto Rican National Team in 2010 at the Central American and Caribbean Games. He was drafted in the 34^th round of the 1990 First-Year Player Draft by the Red Sox out of Cidra High School in Cidra, Puerto Rico.

Ortiz comes to the Hudson Valley with a connection to the Renegades, having served on the Giants staff for four years with former Renegades manager Craig Albernaz, who guided the Gades to the 2017 New York-Penn League Championship.

Spencer Medick

Medick returns to the Renegades for his second season with the Renegades and third in the Yankees organization. He previously served as the Renegades pitching coach in 2022, and spent 2023 as the pitching coach for the FCL Yankees. Before joining the Yankees, he previously served as a throwing trainer at Driveline Baseball, a data-driven baseball player development center in Kent, Washington from 2019-22. Before joining Driveline, he was the lead throwing trainer at Prime Sports Performance, an athletic training facility in Glen Arm, Maryland from 2018-19.

He began working at Prime Sports Performance after finishing a four-year professional career as a left-handed pitcher. Medick pitched for the AZL Diamondbacks in 2014, going 3-0 with a 1.17 ERA (30.2 IP/4 ER) and 32 K in 15 relief appearances. He then spent three seasons playing independent baseball in the Frontier League with the Southern Illinois Miners (2015), Joliet Slammers (2015-16, 18) and Evansville Otters (2018).

He embarked on his professional career after pitching collegiately at Hampden-Sydney College (2010), Polk State College (Fla.) (2011), and Elon University (2012, 13). He graduated from Elon with a bachelor's degree in business administration and management.

Rick Guarno

Guarno enters his first season as the Renegades hitting coach, and his third in the Yankees system. He spent 2023 as the Hitting Coach for Single-A Tampa and served in the same capacity for the FCL Yankees in 2022. Before joining the Yankees, Guarno coached collegiately for 11 years, most recently as the hitting coach and recruiting coordinator at Arkansas State University (2018-21), and before that at the University of Tennessee at Martin (15-17), Young Harris College (13-14) and at his alma mater, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (11-12). Throughout his collegiate coaching career, his teams finished at or near the top of their respective conferences in most offensive categories. While at Arkansas State, he mentored former Renegades infielder Kyle MacDonald.

Before beginning his coaching career, Guarno played professionally for six seasons from 2003-08. He was selected by the Colorado Rockies in the fourth round of the 2003 First-Year Player Draft out of UALR, and hit .263/.334/.392 in 358 games, reaching as high as Triple-A, and also played one season with the Calgary Vipers of the independent Golden Baseball League in 2009, helping lead the team to a championship. A New York native and graduate of Bishop Kearney High School in Rochester, Guarno was a two-year starting catcher and outfielder at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, before finishing his collegiate career at UALR. He earned his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from UALR in 2012 following his playing career.

Derek Woodley

Returning to the Renegades for his second season as a Defensive Coach, Woodley embarks on his second season in the Yankees organization. In 2023, he primarily worked with Renegades catchers, coached baserunning and served in-game as the first base coach. The Renegades stole 185 bases in 2023, the second-highest total in team history.

Prior to joining the Yankees organization in 2023, Woodley was a decorated college coach with over 300 wins to his credit, spending 15 years as the head coach at Defiance College, where he ranks second on the Yellow Jackets’ all-time wins list and served as Athletic Director from 2019-23. Woodley has 30 years of coaching experience at the college level under his belt, including a dozen years at Bethany Lutheran College first as an assistant and then a head coach, and at Manchester University.

Woodley was a two-time Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honoree (2013 and 2019), and his student-athletes were successful on and off the field, garnering 66 All-HCAC selections and 32 Academic All-HCAC honorees. In addition to his coaching and administrative background, Woodley worked as a part time scout for the St. Louis Cardinals from 2000-04, and was a coach for Mankato in the prestigious summer collegiate wood bat Northwoods League from 2000-03.

Zak Wasserman

Wasserman begins his first season in the Yankees system in 2024, joining the Renegades as a Defensive Coach primarily working with outfielders and implementing the team’s baserunning program. He comes to the Yankees after serving as an Assistant Coach at Xavier University in 2022 and 2023, helping the team to the 2023 BIG EAST Championship and an appearance in the Nashville Regional Finals in the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Prior to joining the Musketeers, Wasserman was the head baseball coach at Lake Michigan College from 2018 through 2022, overseeing one of the best offenses in NJCAA Division II.

He began coaching after a four-year playing career, including stops with the AZL Diamondbacks (2014) where he was teammates with Renegades pitching coach Spencer Medick, the Windy City Thunderbolts of the independent Frontier League (2014-16), and in the Yankees system with Rookie-level Pulaski (2016), where one of his coaches was Renegades manager Nick Ortiz. Wasserman graduated from the University of Louisville in 2013 with a bachelor's degree in sports administration and a minor in history after a standout career as a two-way player for the Cardinals. He earned his master’s degree in organizational leadership from Trine University in 2020.

Ryan Shute

Shute begins his fourth year as the Renegades Home Clubhouse Manager and sixth in the Yankees organization, previously working for the Short-Season A Staten Island Yankees in 2019 and Rookie-level Pulaski in 2018. Before joining the Yankees, Shute was the Visiting Clubhouse Manager for the Carolina Mudcats during the 2017 season. A native of the Hudson Valley and 2011 graduate of Our Lady of Lourdes High School, Shute spent four summers as a Stadium Operations and Groundskeeping Assistant for the Renegades from 2012-15.

Adaric Kelly

Kelly begins his first season as the Renegades Athletic Trainer, and his second season in the Yankees organization, having spent the 2023 season as an Athletic Trainer for the FCL Yankees. Born in San Nicolas, Aruba, Kelly attended Trinity Christian Academy in Lake Worth, Florida, and was drafted in the 28^th round of the 2010 First-Year Player Draft by the Toronto Blue Jays as a right-handed pitcher. He played four seasons in the Blue Jays organization, reaching Single-A Lansing in 2014 and appearing in 73 career games.

Following his playing career, Kelly attended the University of Florida, where he served as an Intern Athletic Trainer for the Gators nationally-ranked baseball program before joining the Yankees in 2023.

Dylan Lidge

Lidge begins his first season with the Renegades and second in the Yankees organization as a strength and conditioning coach in 2024. He spent the 2023 season as the strength and conditioning coach for the Single-A Tampa Tarpons. Before joining the Yankees, Lidge served as a strength and conditioning coach at Cressey Sports Performance, a high-performance training facility for athletes located in Florida. He also spent time as an assistant baseball coach at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois in 2020 and worked as an instructor at Fattfro Zone Baseball, Playball USA and GrandeFit in the Chicagoland area.

Lidge earned his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2017 and his master's degree in kinesiology with a concentration in biomechanics from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2021. He interned with the University of Illinois at Chicago strength and conditioning department, and also served as a teacher assistant. His twin brother, Ryan, was drafted by the Yankees in the 20^th round of the 2017 First-Year Player Draft and played in the organization from 2017-2019, reaching as high as Triple-A. His cousin, Brad, had a 10-year MLB career with Houston, Philadelphia and Washington, and won the 2008 World Series with the Phillies.

Danny Althoff

Althoff joins the Renegades for his first season as a Video Assistant in the Yankees system. He joins the team after spending 2023 as a Baseball Systems Operator at Hawk-Eye Innovations, and three years working in Minor League Video and Technology Operations in the Milwaukee Brewers system. While attending Michigan State University and earning his bachelor’s degree in statistics in 2018, Althoff worked as a Baseball Operations Intern in the independent United Shore Professional Baseball League, and after graduation worked as a Scout and Field Manager for Perfect Game USA before joining the Brewers.

Devin Clementi

Begins his first season as an Advance Scouting Analyst with the Renegades, and third season in the Yankees organization after serving in the same role with Single-A Tampa in 2023 and spending the 2022 season as an Associate in the Yankees’ Quantitative Analysis department. Prior to joining the Yankees, Clementi served as a Video & Data Analyst with USA Baseball in 2021. He earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Fordham University and his master’s degree in applied analytics from Columbia University.

The Renegades were managed in 2023 by Sergio Santos, who led the team to a 70-62 record, the SAL North First Half Championship, and a berth in the 2023 SAL Championship Series. Under his tutelage, the Renegades had their 11^th consecutive winning season, and 14^th in the last 15 seasons. Santos has previously been announced as the new manager of the Birmingham Barons, the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox.

Single-game tickets for the 2024 season are on sale now. Fans can purchase tickets to any game throughout the season online by clicking here, calling the Renegades Ticket Office at (845) 838-0094 or by coming to Heritage Financial Park in person.

ABOUT THE HUDSON VALLEY RENEGADES

The Hudson Valley Renegades have served as the High-A affiliate of the New York Yankees since 2021 and were the South Atlantic League North Division Champions in 2023. Since 1994, the Renegades have provided the Hudson Valley with affordable, family-friendly entertainment through the game of baseball at Heritage Financial Park, part of the award-winning Dutchess County Parks system. Season Ticket Memberships for the 2024 30^th anniversary season are on sale now, and may be purchased at www.hvrenegades.com or over the phone by calling (845) 838-0094.

ABOUT DIAMOND BASEBALL HOLDINGS

Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH) was formed in 2021 to support, promote and enhance Minor League Baseball Clubs affiliated with Major League Baseball through professional management, best practices, innovation and investment (DiamondBaseballHoldings.com).