Sky Carp announce 2024 field staff
BELOIT-- The Beloit Sky Carp will be piloted by a familiar face in 2024. Billy Gardner Jr., who led the Sky Carp into action in 2023, has been tabbed by the Miami Marlins to lead the Sky Carp again this season. Gardner will be entering his 25th season as a
BELOIT-- The Beloit Sky Carp will be piloted by a familiar face in 2024.
Billy Gardner Jr., who led the Sky Carp into action in 2023, has been tabbed by the Miami Marlins to lead the Sky Carp again this season. Gardner will be entering his 25th season as a minor league skipper.
Gardner Jr. has managed two teams to titles. He won the 1999 South Atlantic League championship with the Augusta GreenJackets, and took home the crown with the 2007 Montgomery Biscuits of the Southern League.
Joining Gardner Jr. on the staff is pitching coach Jason Erickson, hitting coach Mike Marjama and defensive coach Angel Espada. Hiroki Yoshimoto will be the team’s athletic trainer.
Erickson, 37, returns to Beloit for his third straight season. This will be Erickson’s sixth season in the Marlins organization after a five-year stint with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.
Marjama, 35, is spending his first year as a coach in the Marlins organization. A graduate of Long Beach State, Marjama was a draft 23rd round draft choice by the Chicago White Sox in 2011. He eventually spent part of the 2017 and 2018 seasons in the Major Leagues with the Seattle Mariners.
Marjama spent the previous two seasons as a coach for the Lincoln Potters of the Pacific Empire League.
Espada, 48 a Passaic, N.J. native, enters his sixth season with the Marlins organization as a coach, following 17 years in professional baseball as a player, scout and coach. Like Erickson, he returns to the Sky Carp after two productive seasons.
Yoshimoto had previously worked for four seasons in the Toronto Blue Jays organization.