Yankees Tab Carlos Mendoza as RiverDogs Manager
Yankees Tab
Carlos Mendoza as RiverDogs Manager
Former
RiverDogs Coach & Big Leaguer Promoted; Colbrunn Returns
as Hitting Coach
CHARLESTON, SC - The New York Yankees have
announced that
Carlos Mendoza, a former RiverDogs first base coach and manager of
the Gulf
Coast League Yankees, will guide the Charleston RiverDogs in 2012.
"Carlos is a very bright young man who was a leader as a
player, and has displayed the same leadership skills as a
manager," said Mark
Newman, the Yankees' senior vice president for baseball
operations. "We have
great confidence that he will make
an excellent manager for the RiverDogs."
Mendoza joined the Yankees organization for the 2009
season a member of the Staten Island Yankees' coaching staff
before joining the
RiverDogs' workforce for the 2010 campaign.
During the 2011 campaign, he served as the manager of the
Gulf Coast
League Yankees.
He was signed by the San Francisco Giants as an amateur
free agent in 1996. A
native of
Barquisimeto, Venezuela, the switch-hitter played parts of 13
seasons in the
minor leagues as well as in the Independent League. He made his MLB debut in
1997 with the New
York Mets, and made it to the show again in 2000 with the Colorado
Rockies. In all, he
played in 28 games
in the majors before retiring and beginning his coaching career.
Mendoza will be the fourth RiverDogs manager in as many
years and follows Ledesma (2011), Mt. Pleasant resident Greg
Colbrunn (2010)
and Torre Tyson (2009), also a Mt. Pleasant resident.
Joining Mendoza will be several familiar faces on the
RiverDogs' staff in 2012.
The popular Colbrunn, a 13-year veteran of the big
leagues, returns for his sixth year with the RiverDogs and fifth
as hitting
coach.
A sixth round pick by Montreal in the 1987 First-Year
Player Draft, Colbrunn served as manager after three seasons as
hitting
coach. Although the
team struggled
through a 65-74 campaign - the club's first losing season since
2002 - Colbrunn
instructed an offense led by infielder Rob Lyerly, who was named
to the SAL's
Postseason All-Star Team.
From 2007-09 and under Colbrunn's tutelage, the RiverDogs
never finished worse than fourth in the SAL in team batting
average and
featured several individual highlights.
In 2007, third baseman Mitch Hilligoss sported a
league-record 38-game
hitting streak that lasted from April 17 to June 1.
A newcomer to the staff but no stranger to RiverDogs fans
is former player Brian Baisley, who was a member of the club from
2007-09. He joins the
staff as the first base coach.
"Brian is a promising young man who is beginning his
first full year as a coach," said Newman.
"As a former RiverDog, Brian fully understands the ups and
downs that young
players face in the South Atlantic League.
His experience in Charleston will be a great help to our
young players."
Baisley joins Charleston after beginning his coaching
career in 2011 as an assistant under Mendoza with the short-season
GCL Yankees. As a
player, he spent parts of three
consecutive years in Charleston (2007-09) before retiring as a
player after the
2009 season. A Tampa,
Fla. native,
Baisley was a 24th round pick in the 2006 Amateur Draft
by the
Yankees. He played
collegiately at the
University of South Florida.
Also new to the staff is pitching coach Danny
Borell. The Yankees'
former rehab
pitching coordinator in Tampa spent last season as the pitching
coach for the
Staten Island Yankees. He
is a native of
Sanford, NC and was a second-team All-America southpaw out of Wake
Forest
University. Borell is
a second round
pick in the 2000 First-Year Player Draft and pitched for Staten
Island.
Borell also pitched in the Oakland A's organization,
reaching their AAA affiliate in 2008.
Also joining the staff will be trainer Jorge Vargas and
Mike Kicia returns as the strength and conditioning coach.
The RiverDogs begin the 2012 campaign on Thursday, April
5, when the rival Rome Braves come to Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park to
open a
seven-game homestand.
--RIVERDOGS--