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March 13, 2024 – Cape Girardeau, MO – The Cape Catfish have added another coach to their 2024 staff. After hiring Phil Butler a week ago, GM Mark Hogan announced today that they have added Edgar Martinez as an assistant coach. “We are very excited to find someone with his background to add to our staff,” said Hogan. “He’s only 26 but he’s got a ton of experience working with high level guys including the Houston Astros the last three seasons.”

You heard right but it’s not the Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez. This Edgar Martinez was born and raised in Houston, TX and always dreamed of playing baseball for his hometown Astros. He attended Cypress Creek HS and was a teammate to Ex St. Louis Cardinals fireballer Jordan Hicks. After a nice high school career Martinez went on to play college baseball at Northeast Texas Community College. He injured his shoulder which ended his playing career. He loved baseball and starting working at Dynamic Sports Training in Houston in 2018. That’s where some big leaguers saw his value and told him he should apply for the Astros bullpen position.

“During covid I was working with a lot of guys and they liked how I did things,” said Martinez. I interviewed for the job and in 2021 and got it.” Martinez worked with the Astros big league team in 2022 and 2023 and has a World Series Ring and an LCS Ring to show for it. “It was an awesome experience but at some point I knew I wanted to become a head coach so I needed to start looking for coaching jobs,” said Martinez.

The Cape Catfish position was exactly what he had in mind. He saw there was an opening and reached out to GM Mark Hogan. The travel, the schedule of 56 games in 65 days was appealing to Martinez. “These guys play a big league type schedule and that’s what I was looking for,” said Martinez.

Cape Catfish President Glenn Campbell reached out to Edgar a few weeks ago to introduce himself and see if Cape Girardeau was a place he wanted to spend the summer. “He’s a very soft spoken and humble guy,” said Campbell. “We spoke on the phone for a while last week and we’ve text back and forth and he’s a great guy. We are excited and fortunate to get him. We feel like we’re in great hands with coach Butler and Martinez.”

Both Butler and Martinez will arrive in Cape in late May about the same time the 2024 Catfish players start rolling into town. So far the Catfish roster boasts of about 21 players who have signed contracts including a few returning local players like Lane Crowden, Quinton Borders, Kam Dohogne and Hayden Nazarenus. “We like our team so far,” said GM Mark Hogan. “We have 21 players signed but have about six or eight more that have committed and will sign here shortly. We’re still adding some arms to the roster and we’ll end up with about 35 or so kids before it’s all said and done.”

The Catfish start their season on the road Wednesday May 29th in Jackson, Tenn. Then they host the Full Count Rhythm on Thursday May 30th for their home opener. Season tickets will go on sale sometime in late March, look for details soon on our social channels. You can also visit capecatfish.com to check out the schedule for 2024. Single game tickets will go on sale starting sometime in April.