Homemade Christmas in Syracuse
Donnelly ready for opportunity at Class AAA level next season
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STEUBENVILLE -- The way Rich Donnelly sees it, any Christmas present his wife, Roberta, opens today will pale in comparison to the one she received earlier this month from the New York Mets.
Donnelly, a Steubenville resident and a professional baseball veteran, recently was named the bench coach for Syracuse, the Mets' Class AAA affiliate.
"Right around Christmas, my wife Roberta starts giving me that look," Donnelly said with a smile during a recent interview. "That look means it's time for me to go.
"I also start to get a little edgy around this time of year when spring training schedules start to appear. With that look, she's telling me, 'It's time for you to go, get out of the house.'"
Brian Schneider, who caught for eight years in the majors, recently was named the new manager in Syracuse. Last season, Schneider was on the staff for the Miami Marlins.
Tony DeFrancesco guided the Syracuse Mets in 2019. They finished in a first-place tie in the North Division of the International league before falling in a divisional tie-breaker. DeFrancesco will be the first-base coach for the Mets in 2020, becoming part of the staff of new manager Carlos Beltran.
"The Mets have made a bunch of changes in the organization," said Donnelly, who managed the team's Kingsport, Tenn., affiliate in the Appalachian Rookie League last summer. "They called and said they'd like me to go to Syracuse and help out Brian. I thought about it, and when they said I'd be going to the big league camp, I said it sounds good to me.
"I'm looking forward to working with Brian. This is his first year in Class AAA, and he wanted someone real old to work with him. I was the oldest guy around, so he picked me."
Donnelly calls the opportunity to work with the Syracuse club an honor.
"You have a lot of experienced players in Class AAA and a lot of big leaguers to be," he said. "There are guys at that level who have averaged between five and seven years in the bigs. Guys who don't make the big team will come to us, then probably go back to New York at some point during the season.
"Plus, we'll probably have Tim Tebow going to Syracuse again next season. It will be fun to work with him again."
Tebow, the Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL quarterback, will be entering his fourth full season of minor league ball. His debut with the Syracuse Mets was cut short by a lacerated left pinky incurred fielding a ball that took a bad bounce in the outfield on July 21 against Toledo.
He finished the year hitting .163 with four homers, 19 RBIs and 98 strikeouts in 264 plate appearances, spanning 77 games.
Donnelly will report to training camp in Port St. Lucie, Fla., on Feb. 10, the same day pitchers and catchers for the Mets begin working out.
"The Class AAA staff is there for a month. Once they start to make cuts, our team will get together somewhere between March 20-25 and our season starts on April 9," Donnelly said. "Our guys will be in the big league camp. Each team brings about 50 guys or so to camp. The top 25 will make the big team. The other 25 will come with us."
There are 14 teams in the International League, including Columbus (the Class AAA affiliate of the Cleveland Indians), Louisville (part of the Cincinnati Reds organization) and Toledo (the top farm team of the Detroit Tigers).
"It's as close as you can get to the big leagues," Donnelly said. "It's good to be back at the higher level. I enjoyed working with the young kids, but now I have the opportunity to work with guys who are big league players but for, whatever reason, they didn't make the team.
"We'll also be working with major leaguers who come to us on rehab assignments. Day in and day out, I'll be working with kids who either played in the bigs or will play in the bigs. This is just a great opportunity."
The International League season ends in early September.
"I'll be back the second or third week of September," Donnelly said. "I tell them I can't work in the fall or winter -- I have too much football to watch."
During his coaching career, Donnelly, who will enter his 52nd year of involvement with professional baseball, has served with the Seattle Mariners, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Texas Rangers and, most notably, the then-Florida Marlins. Coaching under manager Jim Leyland, he won a World Series in 1997.
He was originally signed by the Minnesota Twins in 1967 as a catcher and played four years in the Twins organization.