According to Brooklyn Baseball Banter, Tom Gamboa will return to manage the Brooklyn Cyclones for the third straight year. Immediately after the disappointing 33-42 2015 season, Gamboa was unsure of whether he was going to retire or not. His first season with the Cyclones went much better, 42-34 record and a second place finish.
Gamboa made his managerial debut in 1983 for rookie-level Paintsville, leading them to a 47-25 and an Appalachian League title. He was the Chicago Cubs first base coach for two seasons and the Kansas City Royals first base coach for three seasons.
Former Met and fan favorite Edgardo Alfonzo will return to the Cyclones as their bench coach, this will be his third season with Brooklyn.
Yunir Garcia was the Cyclones hitting coach during the 2015 season, he will now drop down to the GCL Mets in the Gulf Coast League in the same position. The move to the GCL follows a historically bad offensive season for the Cyclones which saw them score a New York-Penn League worst and Mets affiliate low of 3.46 runs per game. They also had the lowest OPS in the league at .600 and struck out a league worst 684 times in 76 games.
Garcia will return to the GCL Mets were he was the hitting coach in 2011 and has been coaching in the Mets system since 2008. He spent eight seasons as a player in the Mets farm system, reaching AAA in 2006.
The new Brooklyn Cyclones hitting coach will be former Met farmhand Sean Ratliff who held that role with the Kingsport Mets during the 2015 season. Kingsport made the postseason in 2015 and the offense had a lot to do with it, scoring the second most runs per game with 5.31. They also led the Appalachian League with 627 hits, 139 doubles, and had their .732 OPS was second best.
Last year was the coaching debut for Ratliff who was drafted by the Mets in 2008 (4th round) from Stanford University. He retired from playing baseball in 2012 after attempting a comeback from an awful accident when he was playing for the Binghamton Mets. He was struck in the face with a foul ball when he was standing in the on-deck circle and suffered six broken bones during a spring training game in 2011.
He was coming off a great season in which he hit .298/.353/.505 combined for the B’Mets and St. Lucie Mets in 2010. He played in seven games for the St. Lucie in 2012, unfortunately he struggled due to glare issues and having his eyesight in his right eye drop form 20/15 to 20/30.
Here you can read my review of the Cyclones 2015 season.
