After a championship campaign in 2023, the Erie SeaWolves Tuesday unveiled a staff that has many familiar faces returning in hopes of defending the title.
Gabe Alvarez returns for his third season as the Double-A manager. In his first two seasons leading Erie, Alvarez directed the SeaWolves to a 155-120 record which included back-to-back first-place finishes in the Southwest Division. He was named the Manager of the Year in 2023.
“Couldn’t be more excited,” said Alvarez. “We talked about doing some other things but ultimately I am very grateful, very t
“Having Juan Pimentel and Matt Malott back is huge,” said Alvarez. “They played a huge role along with our hitting coach Frankie Contreras who’s going down to West Michigan. There’s no way we would have won without them.”
Pimentel is back for his second season in Erie. He helped lead a pitching staff last year that saw several promotions to both Triple-A Toledo and eventually Detroit. He helped Reese Olson set a new SeaWolves’ record for strikeouts in a season, breaking a mark that stood since 1999.
“He’s able to explain it the right way to each guy. It’s not a cookie-cutter approach with Juan,” said Alvarez. “He connects with each player. It’s one thing to know the information and be able to show them a video or show them a spreadsheet, but to be able to go out and implement it and put those things into action, that’s something not everyone can do and Juan does it extremely well.”
The Erie SeaWolves open the 2024 season in Harrisburg before beginning the home portion of the season at UPMC Park on April 9 against Binghamton.
hankful that the Tigers decided to send me back to Erie.”
Alvarez is just the third manager in SeaWolves history to lead the team for three or more seasons, joining Chris Cron and Lance Parrish.
he SeaWolves skipper will have two assistants return to his staff, pitching coach Juan Pimentel and bench coach Matt Malott. Hitting coach C.J. Warmsley joins the Erie coaching staff for his first season in 2024.
