By European Baseball Coaches Association
The five finalists for the EBCA Coach of the Year Award have been chosen. Like every years, baseball fans around Europe submitted names of candidates who, they felt, desrved the award and the EBCA picked five candidates for the final voting for its members.
Here are the finalists, placed in alphabetical order.
Chris Byrnes – Zurich Barracudas
Coach Byrnes coaches the Embrach Mustangs for 5 years, making 4 play-offs appearances with a clb that had never experienced that level of succes before. Moving to the Zurich Barracudas, he worked his magic again bringing Zurich back on top of the league with a 20-5 season only to lose the Swiss Finals in the 11th inning of the 5th game of the best of 5 series.
Steve Janssen – Dutch National Team
Coach Janssen is a Belgian coach who is involved in the netherlands for many years. He took over the managerial job after the WBC where he served as a ptching coach. Janssen led team Netherlands to a the European Championship after the Oranje fell short in 2012 and 2010. Janssen won the EBCA Coach of the Year Award in 2009 and now has a chance to become the first coach to win it twice.
Marian Krasny – South Morovia Little League
Marian Krasny led the South Morovia Little League towards a second straight Czech participation to the world’s top sports event, the Little league World Series. His team wasn’t able to record a win in Williamsport but the route to get there was impressive with a convincing sweep at the Little league European Championship in Kutno. Krasny is also coaching in the Trebic youth system.
Rolando Merino – Templiers Sénart
Merino won 2 silver medals at the Olympics for Team Cuba at the Olympics in 2000 and 2008. He also won the gold at the 2001 World Cup. In France, the player/coach of the Templiers Sénart to the Crown in the French competition ending the long streak from the Rouen Huskies.
David Winkler – Czech U21 National team
David Winkler is nominated again for the Award. In 2014, he led the U21 Czech national Team to the European title. That Winkler was able to experience the joy of a chamionship is only fitting since he is heavily involved in developing talent with the academy he is leading in Brno.
It will now be up to our membership to determine who will be crowned EBCA Coach of the Year during the 11th EBCA Convention in Prague.