Cal Poly Hires Three New Assistant Baseball Coaches
9/8/2022 2:16:00 PM | Baseball
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Larry Lee heads into his 21st season as head baseball coach at Cal Poly with an entirely new set of assistant coaches.
Gone are Jake Silverman, who coached the pitchers for three seasons, Ben Greenspan, who coached the catchers, assisted with the team's offense and served as the team's recruiting coordinator for one year, and Justin Bridgman, the Mustangs' volunteer assistant coach the last two seasons.
Silverman was hired by former Mustang assistant coach Jason Kelly, who was named head coach at Washington in late June, while Greenspan headed off to Michigan in early July to rejoin new Wolverine head coach Tracy Smith. Greenspan and Smith worked together at Arizona State and Indiana. Bridgman was recently hired to coach at Tulane.
Replacing the trio of coaches at Cal Poly are Seth Moir, an assistant coach at San Jose State the last two seasons; Matt Fonteno, who has served as an assistant coach at USC, UC Santa Barbara, Saint Mary's and Nevada over the last 10 years; and Logan Denholm, a catcher at UC Davis and Sacramento State and most recently a volunteer assistant coach at San Jose State.
Moir will coach the pitchers while Fonteno will work with the outfielders and serve as the team's recruiting coordinator as well. Denholm is in charge of the catchers and will assist with the hitters.
"Overall, this is a solid group of coaches that are good at developing players and have recruited well at their previous programs," said Lee. "They come in at a time with a lot of new faces on the roster."
The pitching coach at San Jose State, Moir helped the 2022 Spartans to their first 30-victory season and first winning record (30-29) since 2011 and first-ever appearance in the championship game of the Mountain West Conference Tournament. Darren Jansen earned first-team All-MWC honors while Brady Hill earned 10 saves en route to a spot on the All-MWC second unit.
Prior to his two-year stint at San Jose State, Moir spent four years in the Minnesota Twins scouting department. Moir started with the Twins in 2017, serving as the area scout in the Carolinas before moving back to Southern California to scout in 2018. In his time with the Twins, Moir drafted 13 players and signed 10.
Outside of his duties as a scout with the Twins, Moir utilized his pitching expertise to join a small team of scouts specializing in the assessments of arm actions and deliveries.
In 2017, Moir was invited to be an assistant coach for USA Baseball's Collegiate National Team that went on to win series against Chinese Taipei, Cuba and Japan. The roster included 26 eventual draftees and 14 pitchers, several of whom have already gone on to make their MLB debuts.
Prior to joining the Twins organization, Moir served as the Director of Baseball Operations at UCLA for five seasons under head coach John Savage. In his time at UCLA, the Bruins made two trips to Omaha, winning the national championship in 2013.
The Bruins won three Pac-12 titles with Moir on staff while also hosting two regionals in their three postseason appearances. A total of 44 Bruins and 23 pitchers would go on to be taken in the MLB Draft throughout Moir's tenure in Westwood.
Previous to UCLA, Moir took an operations apprenticeship role with the New York Yankees, where he spent time working with player development, scouting, analytics and video. The Yankees went on to sponsor Moir for the MLB Scouting Bureau Scout School.
A native of Cody, Wyoming, Moir is married to his wife, Kelly.
Fonteno was an assistant coach at USC for the 2022 season, coaching the Trojan hitters to a .272 team batting average and 62 home runs. Second baseman Tyresse Turner earned All-Pac-12 honors with a .330 average while outfielder Rhylan Thomas hit .363 overall en route to a spot on the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team.
Fonteno revitalized the Gauchos' offense over three seasons as an assistant coach (2019-21), the last two as associate head coach, and helped the team to the postseason each of the last two full seasons. The 2020 campaign was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
UCSB's runs per game jumped nearly two full runs after Fonteno arrived in 2019, with the Gauchos going 45-11 and earning a No. 2 seed in the Stanford Regional that year. After posting a 13-2 record in the shortened 2020 season, the UCSB offense scored the 18th most runs in the country in 2021, propelling the team to a 41-20 record and No. 3 seed in the Tucson Regional.
Under the watch of Fonteno, considered by his peers as a tremendous developer of talent, the Gauchos saw seven position players selected in the MLB Draft, produced three All-American position players (two freshmen) and had 10 position players earn All-Big West Conference recognition.
Prior to his time in Santa Barbara, Fonteno served as an assistant at Saint Mary's for five seasons (2014-18). In just two years, he helped turn the Gaels into perennial contenders on the West Coast. After a 16-39 record in 2014, Saint Mary's improved to 28-27 in 2015, its first winning season in six years. The 2016 season was even better for SMC as the Gaels went 33-25 en route to its first-ever West Coast Conference regular season title, first-ever WCC Tournament championship and first-ever trip to an NCAA Regional.
Saint Mary's continued its success with a 37-20 showing in 2017 and its third straight 30-win (31-23) season in 2018.
With Fonteno on staff, the Gaels matched a program record twice, with four players selected in both the 2016 and 2018 MLB drafts. In all, 13 Gaels were drafted during Fonteno's tenure, including 10 since 2016 when Fonteno took over as recruiting coordinator.
Prior to St. Mary's, Fonteno spent one season as an assistant coach at Nevada and four seasons as an assistant at Chico State. While at Chico State, Fonteno was a part of the 2012 Wildcats team that won the NCAA Division II West Region and advanced to the World Series. While serving as the recruiting coordinator at Chico State, he brought in 17 all-conference selections, one conference Freshman of the Year, eight All-West region selections, one All-American and two MLB Draft selections.
Before arriving at Chico, Fonteno spent three seasons as an assistant at UNLV, where he worked with outfielders, hitters and base runners, and had seven players taken in the MLB draft.
He has also served as an assistant coach at Cal Lutheran, one of the top Division III programs on the West Coast, while coaching summer ball with the Battle Creek Bombers (Mich.), Petersburg Generals (Va.) and the Highland Park Blue Sox (Texas).
Fonteno graduated from York College in Nebraska, where he was an all-conference centerfielder and led the Panthers to their first ever national ranking. He also played collegiately at College of Marin in Kentfield, Calif.
Fonteno and his wife Lindsey have four children, Eva, Ty, Mia and Ali.
Denholm played baseball for four seasons (2017-20) at UC Davis and one more (2021) at Sacramento State before serving as a graduate assistant coach with the Hornets for the 2022 season.
Denholm hit .270 with 11 home runs and 83 RBIs in 162 games at UC Davis before transferring to Sacramento State, where he collected five hits in 21 games (nine starts) with a pair of RBIs and five runs scored in 2021. Denholm produced a walk-off RBI single in a 7-6 win over San Francisco and did not commit an error in 27 fielding chances.
As a junior at UC Davis in 2019, Denholm hit a career-best .295 with 14 doubles, three home runs, 25 RBIs and 27 runs scored en route to second-team All-Big West Conference honors. He hit .280 as a freshman in 2018 and .295 as a senior in 2020, catching all 24 innings of a 4-3 win over Loyola Marymount, a game that lasted 6 hours, 30 minutes over two days in late February.
As a graduate assistant, Denholm assisted primarily with data and analytics responsibilities, as well as baseball operations. He also served as an assistant coach for the Walnut Creek Crawdads summer ball team in the California Collegiate League for the 2021 season.
Denholm is a 2016 graduate of Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills, Calif., where he earned three varsity letters in baseball and hit .376 as a senior with four home runs and 25 RBI en route to first-team All-Metro and All-Sierra Foothill League honors.
Gone are Jake Silverman, who coached the pitchers for three seasons, Ben Greenspan, who coached the catchers, assisted with the team's offense and served as the team's recruiting coordinator for one year, and Justin Bridgman, the Mustangs' volunteer assistant coach the last two seasons.
Silverman was hired by former Mustang assistant coach Jason Kelly, who was named head coach at Washington in late June, while Greenspan headed off to Michigan in early July to rejoin new Wolverine head coach Tracy Smith. Greenspan and Smith worked together at Arizona State and Indiana. Bridgman was recently hired to coach at Tulane.
Replacing the trio of coaches at Cal Poly are Seth Moir, an assistant coach at San Jose State the last two seasons; Matt Fonteno, who has served as an assistant coach at USC, UC Santa Barbara, Saint Mary's and Nevada over the last 10 years; and Logan Denholm, a catcher at UC Davis and Sacramento State and most recently a volunteer assistant coach at San Jose State.
Moir will coach the pitchers while Fonteno will work with the outfielders and serve as the team's recruiting coordinator as well. Denholm is in charge of the catchers and will assist with the hitters.
"Overall, this is a solid group of coaches that are good at developing players and have recruited well at their previous programs," said Lee. "They come in at a time with a lot of new faces on the roster."
The pitching coach at San Jose State, Moir helped the 2022 Spartans to their first 30-victory season and first winning record (30-29) since 2011 and first-ever appearance in the championship game of the Mountain West Conference Tournament. Darren Jansen earned first-team All-MWC honors while Brady Hill earned 10 saves en route to a spot on the All-MWC second unit.
Prior to his two-year stint at San Jose State, Moir spent four years in the Minnesota Twins scouting department. Moir started with the Twins in 2017, serving as the area scout in the Carolinas before moving back to Southern California to scout in 2018. In his time with the Twins, Moir drafted 13 players and signed 10.
Outside of his duties as a scout with the Twins, Moir utilized his pitching expertise to join a small team of scouts specializing in the assessments of arm actions and deliveries.
In 2017, Moir was invited to be an assistant coach for USA Baseball's Collegiate National Team that went on to win series against Chinese Taipei, Cuba and Japan. The roster included 26 eventual draftees and 14 pitchers, several of whom have already gone on to make their MLB debuts.
Prior to joining the Twins organization, Moir served as the Director of Baseball Operations at UCLA for five seasons under head coach John Savage. In his time at UCLA, the Bruins made two trips to Omaha, winning the national championship in 2013.
The Bruins won three Pac-12 titles with Moir on staff while also hosting two regionals in their three postseason appearances. A total of 44 Bruins and 23 pitchers would go on to be taken in the MLB Draft throughout Moir's tenure in Westwood.
Previous to UCLA, Moir took an operations apprenticeship role with the New York Yankees, where he spent time working with player development, scouting, analytics and video. The Yankees went on to sponsor Moir for the MLB Scouting Bureau Scout School.
A native of Cody, Wyoming, Moir is married to his wife, Kelly.
Fonteno was an assistant coach at USC for the 2022 season, coaching the Trojan hitters to a .272 team batting average and 62 home runs. Second baseman Tyresse Turner earned All-Pac-12 honors with a .330 average while outfielder Rhylan Thomas hit .363 overall en route to a spot on the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team.
Fonteno revitalized the Gauchos' offense over three seasons as an assistant coach (2019-21), the last two as associate head coach, and helped the team to the postseason each of the last two full seasons. The 2020 campaign was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
UCSB's runs per game jumped nearly two full runs after Fonteno arrived in 2019, with the Gauchos going 45-11 and earning a No. 2 seed in the Stanford Regional that year. After posting a 13-2 record in the shortened 2020 season, the UCSB offense scored the 18th most runs in the country in 2021, propelling the team to a 41-20 record and No. 3 seed in the Tucson Regional.
Under the watch of Fonteno, considered by his peers as a tremendous developer of talent, the Gauchos saw seven position players selected in the MLB Draft, produced three All-American position players (two freshmen) and had 10 position players earn All-Big West Conference recognition.
Prior to his time in Santa Barbara, Fonteno served as an assistant at Saint Mary's for five seasons (2014-18). In just two years, he helped turn the Gaels into perennial contenders on the West Coast. After a 16-39 record in 2014, Saint Mary's improved to 28-27 in 2015, its first winning season in six years. The 2016 season was even better for SMC as the Gaels went 33-25 en route to its first-ever West Coast Conference regular season title, first-ever WCC Tournament championship and first-ever trip to an NCAA Regional.
Saint Mary's continued its success with a 37-20 showing in 2017 and its third straight 30-win (31-23) season in 2018.
With Fonteno on staff, the Gaels matched a program record twice, with four players selected in both the 2016 and 2018 MLB drafts. In all, 13 Gaels were drafted during Fonteno's tenure, including 10 since 2016 when Fonteno took over as recruiting coordinator.
Prior to St. Mary's, Fonteno spent one season as an assistant coach at Nevada and four seasons as an assistant at Chico State. While at Chico State, Fonteno was a part of the 2012 Wildcats team that won the NCAA Division II West Region and advanced to the World Series. While serving as the recruiting coordinator at Chico State, he brought in 17 all-conference selections, one conference Freshman of the Year, eight All-West region selections, one All-American and two MLB Draft selections.
Before arriving at Chico, Fonteno spent three seasons as an assistant at UNLV, where he worked with outfielders, hitters and base runners, and had seven players taken in the MLB draft.
He has also served as an assistant coach at Cal Lutheran, one of the top Division III programs on the West Coast, while coaching summer ball with the Battle Creek Bombers (Mich.), Petersburg Generals (Va.) and the Highland Park Blue Sox (Texas).
Fonteno graduated from York College in Nebraska, where he was an all-conference centerfielder and led the Panthers to their first ever national ranking. He also played collegiately at College of Marin in Kentfield, Calif.
Fonteno and his wife Lindsey have four children, Eva, Ty, Mia and Ali.
Denholm played baseball for four seasons (2017-20) at UC Davis and one more (2021) at Sacramento State before serving as a graduate assistant coach with the Hornets for the 2022 season.
Denholm hit .270 with 11 home runs and 83 RBIs in 162 games at UC Davis before transferring to Sacramento State, where he collected five hits in 21 games (nine starts) with a pair of RBIs and five runs scored in 2021. Denholm produced a walk-off RBI single in a 7-6 win over San Francisco and did not commit an error in 27 fielding chances.
As a junior at UC Davis in 2019, Denholm hit a career-best .295 with 14 doubles, three home runs, 25 RBIs and 27 runs scored en route to second-team All-Big West Conference honors. He hit .280 as a freshman in 2018 and .295 as a senior in 2020, catching all 24 innings of a 4-3 win over Loyola Marymount, a game that lasted 6 hours, 30 minutes over two days in late February.
As a graduate assistant, Denholm assisted primarily with data and analytics responsibilities, as well as baseball operations. He also served as an assistant coach for the Walnut Creek Crawdads summer ball team in the California Collegiate League for the 2021 season.
Denholm is a 2016 graduate of Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Hills, Calif., where he earned three varsity letters in baseball and hit .376 as a senior with four home runs and 25 RBI en route to first-team All-Metro and All-Sierra Foothill League honors.
Cal Poly vs. UCR, Baseball Highlights -- May 17th, 2025
Sunday, May 18
Cal Poly vs. UCR, Baseball Highlights -- May 16th, 2025
Saturday, May 17
Cal Poly vs. UCR, Baseball Highlights -- May 15th, 2025
Friday, May 16
Cal Poly vs. Pepperdine, Baseball Highlights -- May 6th, 2025
Wednesday, May 07
