The Charleston RiverDogs hunt for a fifth-consecutive trip to the Carolina League postseason will be led by several familiar faces. Manager Sean Smedley, who guided the team to a championship in 2023 and the South Division second half title in 2024, is set to return for a third season at the helm. The rest of the coaching staff, announced by the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday morning, features returners Brett Schneider as hitting coach and Levi Romero as pitching coach. Bench coach Francisco Leandro returns to Charleston for the first time since 2019 when he was the team’s defensive coach while with the New York Yankees organization. Spending their first year in the Holy City will be strength and conditioning coach Rance Terry and athletic trainer Kyndell Crowell.
Smedley is entering his ninth season with the Rays and third as the manager in Charleston. In his first two seasons as manager, the 34-year-old has compiled a 135-126 regular season record with a 5-3 mark in the postseason. His teams have consistently shown improvement throughout the season, combining to post a .623 winning percentage in the second half. Smedley is scheduled to attend the RiverDogs Hot Stove Dinner on January 31st.
His coaching career began as video coordinator for the rookie-level Princeton Rays in 2016. In 2017, he returned to Princeton, this time as the bench coach. For the next two seasons, Smedley was part of former RiverDogs manager Blake Butera’s staff as the bench coach for the Hudson Valley Renegades.
The native of Colorado was announced as the manager in Princeton for the 2020 season, however before play began the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When play resumed in 2021, Smedley again was part of Butera’s staff as the bench coach, this time in Charleston. That team went 82-38, led the league in batting average and home runs and captured the first championship in franchise history. Smedley then spent one season as the bench coach for Double-A Montgomery, before returning to Charleston in 2023.
“I am really excited to have the opportunity to return to Charleston for another season,” said Smedley. “The fun part about this level is working with young players and helping them improve as they adapt to a full season of professional baseball. April can’t get here soon enough.”
Schneider returns to the Lowcountry as hitting coach after a 2024 campaign that featured improvements from several young hitters as the season progressed. The RiverDogs finished third in the league in walks and fourth in on-base percentage. He spent the previous four years as a hitting coach in the Seattle Mariners farm system, including with the Arizona Complex League Mariners in 2023. Prior to coaching in the professional ranks, Schneider was a volunteer assistant coach at Florida Atlantic University. He also served as hitting coach for the Green Bay Bullfrogs of the Northwoods League in 2016 and managed the Great Lakes Collegiate League’s Richmond Jazz in 2017.
Romero is back for a third season as the pitching coach after guiding the 2024 staff to the most shutouts in the league (15) and the circuit’s fourth-best ERA. Prior to joining the RiverDogs, he served in the same role with the Rays Florida Complex League affiliate in 2022. Romero was the pitching coach for one of the Rays two entries in the Dominican Summer League in 2021. His playing career began in 2003 when he was signed out of Venezuela by the Houston Astros. In all, he pitched for five years in Minor League Baseball with the Astros and Texas Rangers before embarking on a seven-year international career that included stops in Venezuela and Japan and ended in 2015.
Leandro will serve as bench coach for the RiverDogs after spending each of the last two seasons with the FCL Rays. His primary responsibilities will include outfield defense and baserunning. After playing collegiately at Central Missouri, Leandro was drafted by Tampa Bay in 2004 and played in 31 games for the RiverDogs later that season. Prior to joining the Rays, the native of Venezuela coached for both the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees. He returned to Charleston as a defensive coach for the 2019 RiverDogs, who were affiliated with New York at the time.
The upcoming campaign will be the first with the Rays and the first in Charleston for Terry. He spent the last four years as the Senior Performance Coach for the University of Louisville’s baseball and men’s golf teams. Terry has previously worked in the farm systems of the Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals as well as collegiately at Purdue, Louisiana Tech, Florida Gulf Coast University, Tarleton State, Texas Tech and Texas Christian University. A 2012 graduate of Lubbock Christian University, Terry earned a bachelor's degree in exercise science while catching for the Chaparral baseball team. In 2015, he earned also a master's degree in Kinesiology from Tarleton State.
Crowell joined the RiverDogs as an athletic trainer late in the 2024 season but will spend her first full season in Charleston in 2025. She served in the same role for the FCL Rays during each of the last two seasons. Prior to joining the Rays in 2023, Crowell spent the 2022 campaign as associate athletic trainer for the Milwaukee Brewers Single-A affiliate in the Carolina League. She has a master’s degree in athletic training from Point Loma Nazarene University.
A printable version of the RiverDogs 2025 schedule is located here.
