Milwaukee Brewers Announce 2023 Staff for Timber Rattlers

GRAND CHUTE, WI – The Milwaukee Brewers announced the 2023 Wisconsin Timber Rattlers coaching and support staff today. Joe Ayrault returns for his second year as the manager of the Timber Rattlers with a whole new staff to work with this year’s team.

Ken Joyce is the new hitting coach with Drew Thomas as the new pitching coach. David Tufo is the bench coach and Bryan Delgado joins the coaching staff, too. Athletic Trainer Benny Arroyo and Strength and Conditioning Specialist Jim Buckley are also new to the Timber Rattlers Thomas, Joyce, and Arroyo were all with the Carolina Mudcats last season. Tufo managed the Brewers Gold affiliate in the Arizona Complex League. Buckley and Delgado are both new to the organization.

Ayrault led the Timber Rattlers to a 69-60 record during the 2022 season, his first at the helm in Wisconsin. Ayrault has been a member of the Brewers organization since 2010. He managed the Helena Brewers (Pioneer League 2010-11), the Brevard County Manatees (2012-2016), and Carolina Mudcats (2017-2021) prior to arriving in Wisconsin last season. Ayrault, who was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the fifth round of the 1990 draft out of Sarasota (FL) High School, spent his entire playing career in the Braves organization, including time in Major Leagues in 1996 and a place on Atlanta’s postseason roster that year.

He started his coaching career with the Texas Rangers in their minor league system in 2001 and moved on to the Cincinnati Reds organization in 2004. Ayrault was the manager of the Sarasota Reds in the Florida State League from 2007 through 2009. He is 903-1,003 (.474) in fifteen seasons as a minor league manager.

Joyce is in his second season as a coach in the Brewers system. He started his professional coaching career as a bullpen coach for the Portland Sea Dogs in the Miami Marlins system in 1994. Joyce was the hitting coach of the Utica Blue Sox, when former Wisconsin manager Matt Erickson made his professional debut and played 69 games for the Blue Sox in 1997. Joyce has also coached or managed in the Toronto Blue Jays, San Francisco Giants, and New York Yankees organizations along with spending 2021 with the West Virginia Power of the independent Atlantic League before joining Milwaukee.

Thomas also starts his second season as a coach for Milwaukee’s minor league system. He was the pitching coach for Coastal Carolina University from 2007 through 2021, a span that included a 2016 College World Series Championship for the Chanticleers. Coastal Carolina pitchers led their conference in ERA six times during Thomas’s fifteen seasons as the pitching coach there. Thomas pitched professionally in the San Diego Padres system in 1998 and with the Canton Crocodiles of the Frontier League in 1999 and 2000. He began his coaching career with IMG Academy in Florida in 2003 and was there until joining Coastal Carolina.

Tufo was the manager of the Brewers Gold affiliate in the Arizona Complex League during the 2021 and 2022 seasons. He came to the Milwaukee system as a coach in 2020 after spending three seasons (2017-2019) with the University of Portland as an assistant coach. Tufo was 59-45 as a manager, including a 32-21 record last season.

Delgado spent 2022 as development coach for the Trenton Thunder in the MLB Draft League. He played college baseball at Grambling State University before starting his coaching career with time at Grambling and the Lafayette Aviators of the Prospect League.

Arroyo began his career in the Brewers system as the Athletic Trainer for the Dominican Summer League Brewers in 2017 and remained there in 2018. He has been on the training staff for the Arizona Brewers Gold, Milwaukee Brewers, and Carolina Mudcats before his assignment to Wisconsin. Arroyo was also a trainer for the Glendale Desert Dogs during the 2022 Arizona Fall League season.

Buckley, a graduate of Castleton University in Vermont, comes to the Brewers organization after spending the 2022 season as the Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Fort Wayne TinCaps of the Midwest League.

The Timber Rattlers begin the 2023 season at Beloit on Friday, April 7. Wisconsin’s Home Opener is set for Tuesday, April 11 against the Peoria Chiefs. Game time is 6:40pm.