The Tempe Knights parted ways with their 64 year old manager Jose Mendoza today. Mendoza in the middle of his 3rd year at the helm. He was 155-231 .401 pct during his tenure for the Arizona club. In the last three years the Knights finished in the cellar 2 straight years and are currently in the Desert Hills cellar half way through the 2121 season with a 25-37 record.

After a short morning meeting between Tempe’s GM Rory “Beercloud” Collins and manager Mendoza, the decision was made to make a change. Mendoza was reportedly offered a lower level minor league stint in which he refused and requested the bench coach position with the Knights. But the Knights decided to cut their ties with him all together. “We are making the decision to go into a new direction at the manager position for the Tempe Knights. We are not satisfied with the current state of our upper level program and feel enough time has been given to Jose to right the ship. The record speaks for itself. The Knight organization wish Mendoza and his family luck and thank him for his service”.

“We would like to also announce the new manager of the Tempe Knights Michio Aoki. We feel fortunate to have Michio in our organization and look forward to see him take the wheel and steer this team in a new direction”. The 55 year old Japanese native has been the manager of the knight’s AAA affiliate Chandler Waxers for the last 2 years. He has compiled a record of 109-96 managing the Waxers. He’s been in PEBA for 14 seasons and has record 12 winning seasons. Including 2 with the Niihama-Shi Ghosts in 2007-08 and 1 season  with the Arlington Bureaucrats. The rest of his stays were with AA Hampton, AAA Newport News and AAA Chandler. His career record is 1043-833 .556 pct.

In other organizational news, the Knights promote 45 year old Pedro Rodriguez to manage AAA Chandler. Tempe has high hopes for Pedro in the future.