(WISCONSIN TIMBER RATTLERS) GRAND CHUTE, WI – Victor Estevez is back on the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers bench for the 2025 Midwest League season. The Milwaukee Brewers have announced Estevez, who led the 2024 Timber Rattlers to the Midwest League Championship Series and won the Midwest League’s Manager of the Year award, will return to Neuroscience Group field with a new set of coaches.
Estevez, a native of the Dominican Republic, is in his thirteenth season as a member of the Milwaukee organization. He started as an infield coach for the Dominican Summer League affiliates in 2013 before becoming the manager of the DSL Brewers in 2016, a position he held through the 2021 season. He spent two seasons in charge of the Carolina Mudcats and was the Carolina League Manager of the Year in 2023 after a 72-55 record and the team’s first playoff berth since 2008. Last season was Wisconsin’s first playoff appearance since 2016 and first Championship Series appearance since 2012. The Rattlers went 77-54 in the 2024 regular season. Estevez is 379-354 in his minor league managerial career.
He will have a new staff to work with to develop this year’s group of Timber Rattlers. Michael O’Neal will be the new Pitching Coach with Evan Berliner named as the new Hitting Coach. Marcelo Alfonsín is a coach, and Tommy McManus is an Associate Coach on Estevez’s staff. Strength & Conditioning Specialist Luis Rios-Reyes is also new to the support staff. Paul Gonzales is back for his second season as Wisconsin’s Athletic Trainer.
O’Neal, a graduate of Auburn University, was a development coach for the Timber Rattlers in 2021. He moves up from his role as the pitching coach in Carolina in 2024 to step into the same role with Wisconsin in 2025.
Berliner was a hitting coach for the Arizona Complex League Brewers in 2024. Prior to that he was an assistant coach at Hillsdale College and at South Dakota State University.
Alfonsín, a native or Argentina, is in his second season with the Brewers system. He spent last year as a coach with the Mudcats in the Carolina League. Alfonsín managed in the Dominican Summer League for an Astros affiliate in 2022 and 2023 and was the pitching coach for the Argentinian National Baseball team during the 2022 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers.
McManus is back for his second stint with the Brewers organization. He was a development coach for the ACL Brewers in 2023. He spent 2024 as a fundamentals coach with the Tri-City Valley Cats of the independent Frontier League. McManus also has coaching experience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Norfolk State University.
Gonzales, who has degrees from California State University, Los Angeles and Pacific University, was the athletic trainer for the Brooklyn Cyclones, the South Atlantic League affiliate of the New York Mets in 2023 before joining the Brewers organization for the 2024 season. He had been in the Mets system since 2019 with stops as an athletic trainer in the Dominican Republic and in the Mets Port St. Lucie, Florida Complex.
Rios-Reyes, who played college baseball for Barry University in Florida, was Strength & Conditioning Coordinator for both of Milwaukee’s Dominican Summer League affiliates last year.
The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers open the 2025 season at home against the Cedar Rapids Kernels on Friday, April 4. First pitch is scheduled for 6:40pm CDT.
Full-season, half-season, mini-plan, and flex packages for the 2025 season are available online through timberrattlers.com, over the phone at (920) 733-4152, or in person at the Timber Rattlers Box Office located at Neuroscience Group Field. The box office is open from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday.
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