History: Register of Managers

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History: Register of Managers

#1 Post by Vic »

By Hamish Campbell
The Edinburgh News
09-04-2028

Here is the latest in a series of historical pieces on the Claymores franchise: a register of the team's managers since the founding of the franchise in 2007 as the Fushigi Yugi Celestial Warriors in the League of the Rising Sun and through to the present day.

As you will see, there are still some gaps in the record and spots where specifics are a bit fuzzy, but as time goes on, perhaps new information will come to light.

Consider this a living document.

Here, then, are the managers:

Yoshiro Seki, 2007

Yoshiro Seki was the first manager in franchise history, and lasted just one season at the helm of the Fushigi Yugi Celestial Warriors. He’s gone on, however, to enjoy a long and accomplished managerial career. He’s been running the Havana Leones for the past four seasons, and won manager of the year in 2027.

Regular Season Record with franchise:
60-86, .411
Best Season With Franchise: 2007
60-86, .411, 5th place, 34 GB
Post Season Record:
N/A.

Jorge Álvarez, 2008-2009
Jorge Álvarez is a California native who came to Fushigi Yugi as the team’s second manager after a single year of managing a minor league affiliate of the Arlington Bureaucrats.


His first year with the Celestial Warriors was less than stirring, as he led them to a 67-79 record in 2008. The next season was more successful, though: a winning record and a 3rd place finish.

Despite the team’s uptick in fortunes, Álvarez was shown the door at the end of the 2009 season. He caught on for a couple of years with a minor league team, but by the end of 2011, he was out of professional baseball and searching for a job.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
144-148, .493.
Best Season With Franchise: 2008
77-69, .527, 3rd Place, 7 GB
Post Season Record:
N/A.

Toshiyuki Fugimoto, 2010-2016.
Toshiyuki Fugimoto won the Neo-Tokyo Cup (the LRS league championship) in the first year of his tenure with the team, charging into a Bright Blade Group Wild Card spot with a late-season surge of victories. The Celestial Warriors finished in second place, 6 games behind the BBG winner, Edo Battousai.


Fushigi Yugi went on to oust Edo with a 4-2 series win, then took the championship 4 games to 3 over Shining Star Group champion Niihama-Shi.

Fugimoto managed the team to his best record in 2011, but failed to make the playoffs. In subsequent years, the Celestial Warriors hovered around .500, but didn’t come close to sniffing the post-season.

By mid-2016, the franchise decided to make a change, but found a soft landing spot for him: Fugimoto managed the Fushigi Yugi AAA affiliate for the next eight years. The Nichibutsu Crestas won the minor league championship under his leadership in 2018 and 2019.

He retired from the Crestas after a dismal 2023 season, but caught on for a brief stint with the Toyama Wind Dancers in 2026. Fugimoto currently manages the Niihama-shi Ghosts in the World Independent League.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
461-433, .516.
Best Season With Franchise: 2010
78-66, .542, 2nd Place, 6 GB. Won Wild-card spot, League Championship, Neo-Tokyo Cup
Post Season Record: 2010
8-5, .625. One Neo-Tokyo Cup appearance, one victory.

Matsusuke Tanaka, 2016-2021.
Matsusuke Tanaka is the winningest manager in franchise history, took the team to the playoffs twice, won the team’s second Neo-Tokyo Cup, and oversaw its move from Japan to Dayton as part of the LRS merger with the PEBA.

In short, Tanaka is a historic figure for the Claymores organization that only Fugimoto comes close in significance.


The 2017 club, which went 88-56, has the most wins in franchise history. Given that the LRS played just 144 games, that win total would be equivalent to 99 wins in the 162-game PEBA schedule. Tanaka led that team to the Neo-Tokyo Cup series, but lost to Neo-Tokyo 4 games to 2.

Fushigi Yugi returned to the series the following year, topping Shin Seiki in five games to take the championship.

Tanaka left the team after its first year in Dayton, where he finished 81-81, and sat out for a few seasons. He managed Kure Arsenal for one fairly dismal season in 2025, and has been out of the game since then.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
465-405, .534.
Best Season With Franchise: 2018
87-57, .604, 2nd Place, 1 GB. Won Wild-card spot, League Championship, Neo-Tokyo Cup
Post Season Record: 2017-2018
14-7, .667. Two Neo-Tokyo Cup appearances, one win.

José Mendoza, 2022-2023
José Mendoza served as "bench coach/manager," leading the Dayton Flyers for the 2022 season and part of 2023.


Although he had reasonable success at the helm, he left the job at the end of the 2023 season and has not had a post in organized baseball since. (In strictly OOTP terms, I believe his tenure coincided with a time when OOTP did not allow managers for teams with a human GM. Folks in the other league I'm in said bench coaches served the managerial function during that period - and, indeed, Mendoza is the only FY/Dayton/Scottish bench coach I find listed in the register. So, I'm going with him!)

Before taking the helm, Mendoza served about half of the 2021 season as bench coach under Matsusuke Tanaka. And, previous to that, he worked 2.5 seasons as manager in Tempe, with little success.

Although he's a somewhat obscure figure in franchise lore, Mendoza filled a pivotal role in guiding the team through its early years in the PEBA. For that, he deserves recognition.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
160-164, .494
Best Season With Franchise: 2022
83-79, .512, 3rd Place, 7 GB.
Post Season Record:
N/A

Byron Gray, 2023-2024
Byron Gray is the definition of interim, so far as the Claymores’ franchise is concerned. His main claim to fame is that he helmed the club for its first few games in Edinburgh, before he was demoted to run the Inverness Highlanders.


Gray compiled a 28-44 record to finish out the 2023 season, and a 6-8 mark to begin 2024.

He was dismissed from the Inverness job following two ineffective seasons and is currently looking for another post.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
34-52, .395.
Best Season With Franchise: 2024
6-8, .428.
Post Season Record:
N/A

Forest Sizemore, 2024
Although Forest Sizemore has a long record as a manager in the minor leagues, his sole PEBA experience is his partial-season tenure with the Claymores during their inaugural season in Scotland.


The team struggled, as did Sizemore, and he was dismissed at the end of the year. After sitting out a season, though, he resumed managing in the minors, where he is still active as of the 2028 season.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
59-89, .399.
Best Season With Franchise: 2024
59-89, .399, 4th Place, 21 GB.
Post Season Record:
N/A

Garrett Pack, 2025
Although the record is a little cloudy, it appears that Pack served as both General Manager and Field Manager for the Claymores in 2025. There are contemporaneous news stories from that year covering Pack’s introduction as GM, but he also is listed as the manager in the historical ledger of field managers maintained by the league.


So, unless and until better information surfaces, that’s how we’ll treat Pack’s brief and fairly inglorious tenure.

He ran the club for just that one season, finished well under .500, and was gone by the beginning of the next year.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
66-96, .407.
Best Season With Franchise: 2025
66-96, .407, 3rd Place, 21 GB.
Post Season Record:
N/A

Octávio Ríos, 2026
The dubious distinction of least successful manager in the history of the franchise goes to … unbelievably, Octávio Ríos.

The club suffered its only 100-loss season under Ríos’s direction, and it’s little wonder that he lasted just the one year.

And yet he arrived in Edinburgh with such high hopes: he was fresh from a 100-win campaign with Aurora, where he’d made the playoffs in all three years of his tenure and won the PEBA championship and manager of the year honors in 2023.


So what happened? Well, Ríos arrived in Edinburgh to find, essentially, that he’d inherited the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. As their record suggests, they couldn’t hit, pitch, or field, so he flamed out in spectacular fashion.

He has not managed since.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
62-100, .383.
Best Season With Franchise: 2025
62-100, .383, 3rd Place, 20 GB.
Post Season Record:
N/A

Tae-geun Kim, 2027
Tae-geun Kim arrived in Scotland fresh from a long tenure as the batting coach for the Bakersfield Bears.

But it’s fair to say he wasn’t exactly loaded for bear. The only thing that saves Kim from the worst tenure in franchise history is the track record of his immediate predecessor, Octavio Rios.


Kim took over, essentially, the same woebegone cast of characters that brought Rios down, and managed only improve the team’s fortunes by a single game.

It wasn’t good enough, and when new management took over the team in 2028, Kim was shown the door. He is still searching for a new job in baseball.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
63-99, .389.
Best Season With Franchise: 2025
63-99, .389, 2nd Place, 34 GB.
Post Season Record:
N/A

Hayato Sasaki, 2028 - ???
The Hayato Sasaki story with the Claymores is still being written as we speak, but it looks promising. He was hired by General Manager Vic Caleca because of his reputation as a whiz with sabermetrics and winning manner with players.


So far, it has paid off: by the end of the 2029 regular season, Sasaki had notched 190 wins as manager, which ranks him as 3rd on the all-time victory list for the franchise.

Not bad for two years of work. He won the first IL Wild Card spot, which made him the third manager in franchise history to take the team to the post-season – but the first to do it since the team became part of the PEBA. He repeated the feat in 2029.

Sasaki won the Wild Card and Divisional playoff rounds in 2028, but lost a Game 7 to West Virginia in the Imperial League Championship series. In 2029, by the end of the season, injuries had decimated the Scottish pitching staff, and the team was swept out of the playoffs by Kentucky in the Wild Card round.

After the 2028 season, Sasaki was named Imperial League Manager of the Year.

With Scottish management, at mid-season, deciding to tear the team down and embark on a rebuilding phase, 2030 was the worst season of Sasaki's tenure, as he went 73-89 and missed the playoffs. As 2031 dawns, the team has been completely remade and how they'll do with their new youth movement is anyone's guess.

Regular Season Record With Franchise:
263-223 .541.
Best Season With Franchise: 2028
96-66, .593, 2nd Place, 2 GB. Won Wild Card spot, won Wild Card playoff series, won Divisional Round. Lost league championship series 4 games to 3.
Post Season Record:
10-11, .476.
Last edited by Vic on Tue May 19, 2020 12:18 pm, edited 13 times in total.
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#2 Post by Vic »

I'll go through in a bit and insert links and photos, etc. -- this was a three-week research project that involved going through interminable lists of small type and not always finding what I needed. Resurrecting the LRS Forum was a help, I've gotta say!

I like having the list: it further helps bring the team to life, I think.
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#3 Post by Borealis »

That was an awesome breakdown Vic!!
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#4 Post by DrewV »

Awesome! I really enjoy your dedication to the team's history.
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#5 Post by Leones »

Well researched, and presented. It's always fun to explore PEBA history. Never fails to leave an impression.
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#6 Post by Vic »

Thanks, all! Went through and cleaned it up a bit, added links and pix so it looks better.

I really like delving into the history - and this one was a challenge, because some of those managers aren't listed in the manager register. Had to go through the listing of coaches looking for positions and those already working for other teams to find a couple of them. It was cool to find them, though!

The nice thing here, too, is it adds a bunch of potential story lines going forward, just as the look at the first draft picks does. Here, for instance, you have Sasaki rising up in the win total rankings of managers, and you have Rios who went from a 100-62 record with Aurora one year to a 62-100 record with Scotland the next. Story there, right?

Will probably stick to the present day stuff until the season ends now, but delve back into the archives during the off-season.

Great fun!
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#7 Post by Borealis »

Well, you can use this to fill-in some informational blanks regarding Rios...

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Re: History: Register of Managers

#8 Post by Vic »

Oh awesome - did you ever write anything about how he cratered in Edinburgh? That has to be one of the all-time crash and burns ...
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#9 Post by Borealis »

Claymores wrote:Oh awesome - did you ever write anything about how he cratered in Edinburgh? That has to be one of the all-time crash and burns ...
No... I never payed him much attention after he left - the more interesting story was how did Will Topham end up being Manager AND GM for one season...
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#10 Post by Vic »

Cool. Well, once the season is over, I'm going to cue the violins and tell the tragic tale of Octavio and how he still gets the dry heaves even thinking about plaid ...
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Re: History: Register of Managers

#11 Post by Borealis »

:bang: :bang: :clap: :bang: :bang: :clap: :bang: :bang:
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