Tacoma Rainiers 2021 manager Kristopher Negron has been promoted. Fresh off winning the Triple-A West championship in his first season as a professional manager, Negron was announced as the Seattle Mariners major league first base coach for 2022.
Negron will go in the Tacoma history books as one of the shortest-lived and most successful managers in franchise history: one season, a 78-52 record, and a league championship.
Believe it or not, there has actually been another manager in Tacoma’s long history of Triple-A baseball who performed the same trick. Mike Ferraro managed the 1978 Tacoma Yankees to a Pacific Coast League championship in his only season at the helm of Tacoma’s team. Ferraro worked his way up the minor league ranks as a manager, won it all in his first Triple-A season, and was promoted to be the New York Yankees third base coach the next year.
Congratulations are in order for Negron, who played parts of six years in the majors and now returns as a coach.
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The Mariners also added Andy McKay to the major league coaching staff. McKay had been serving as the organization’s Director of Player Development – a job which caused him to make numerous appearances at Cheney Stadium. McKay will still oversee aspects of development throughout the organization, with his former assistant Emanuel Sifuentes now taking over the day-to-day director of player development duties.
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Baseball America released the full list of minor league free agents, and many members of the 2021 Tacoma Rainiers are now free to sign with any team. The Mariners could re-sign some of these players – we’ll have to wait and see. Minor league players who have six full seasons of experience and are not on the major league 40-man roster are permitted free agency.
PITCHERS
- Nick Duron
- Darin Gillies
- Moises Gomez
- Justin Grimm
- Ian McKinney
- Brian Schlitter
- Logan Verrett
- Zack Weiss
- Asher Wojciechowski
- Daniel Zamora
HITTERS
- Alen Hanson
- Luis Liberato
- Jose Marmolejos
- Brian O’Keefe
- Jack Reinheimer
- Dillon Thomas
- Sam Travis
- Jantzen Witte
Most of these guys are veteran players who have big league experience and were key components of the Rainiers championship club. Hopefully the organization will bring some of them back.
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- MLB.com has the rundown on the Seattle Mariners coaching staff moves.
- Baseball America has the complete list of minor league free agents for all 30 teams.
- Now that the GM Meetings are over, what’s next for the Mariners?
- The Seattle Times has an in-depth look at the Mariners catching situation.
- The M’s will be talking to the star-studded free agent shortstop class, but Jerry Dipoto says that J.P. Crawford will remain at short and any infielders that get signed will play other positions.
March 16, 2023