AVON, Ohio — The Lake Erie Crushers\u2019 2026 coaching staff under manager Jared Lemieux has been solidified, according to team officials. <\/p>\n
Mark Mason returns as the bench coach, Brandyn Sittinger returns as a player\/pitching coach and Brett Much\u00e9 joins the team as the hitting coach.<\/p>\n
Mark Mason <\/p>\n
Mason returns to the Crushers for his second season as bench coach. Mason also had picked up pitching coach duties midway through 2025 due to Johnny Barbato\u2019s exit after being signed to the Mexican League. <\/p>\n
Mason was recently inducted into the Pennsylvania Baseball Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
He coached collegiately from 1987 to 2009 at Washington and Jefferson, Waynesburg University and the University of Pittsburgh, winning five conference championships and four Coach of the Year awards.<\/p>\n
Mason is no stranger to the Frontier League, where the Crushers play. He managed the Washington Wild Things for five seasons in the 2000s, winning Coach of the Year twice. <\/p>\n
Mason is also the all-time winningest manager for the York Revolution in the Atlantic League, with 606 career wins, including a championship in 2017. <\/p>\n
His most recent managing stint came in 2023 with the Empire State Greys, a Frontier League travel team.<\/p>\n
Brandyn Sittinger <\/p>\n
Sittinger has become a household name around Avon. <\/p>\n
The LaGrange native and Keystone High School alumnus provides unique Major League Baseball experience to the Crushers, now in a new pitching coach role. <\/p>\n
In 2021, Sittinger made his MLB debut with the Arizona Diamondbacks after his first stint in the Frontier League with the Evansville Otters in 2019. <\/p>\n
Sittinger joined the Crushers as a pitcher in 2025 and was one of the most dominant relievers in the league in the second half of the season. <\/p>\n
Now the acting pitching coach, Sittinger\u2019s role expands from his own pitching on the mound to the performance of the Crushers\u2019 pitching staff as a unit. <\/p>\n
Sittinger becomes the second player\/coach in as many years under Lemieux. <\/p>\n
Brett Much\u00e9 <\/p>\n
Much\u00e9 brings over 25 years of baseball experience, with origins at North Olmsted High School, where he was an upperclassman baseball standout and eventually inducted into their Hall of Fame in 2007. <\/p>\n
He went on to play at Tiffin University from 1991-1993 and was the first player signed in the history of the Newark Buffalos, a Frontier League franchise.<\/p>\n
Much\u00e9 finished his professional playing career as a corner infielder\/catcher with the Dakota Rattlers in 1996 before returning to California to coach at Los Angeles High School and El Segundo High School.<\/p>\n
In 2000, Much\u00e9 landed an assistant coaching job at Pierce College, and in 2001 he was promoted to head coach, a title he kept for three seasons. <\/p>\n
From there, he has been heavily invested in the future of baseball through player development, coaching and instruction at the San Diego Strikers Baseball Academy and Big League Edge.<\/p>\n