Bradenton’s Jonathan Johnston was named the Low-A Southeast League Manager-of-the-Year today. He is the first manager in Marauders history to take home Manager-of-the-Year honors. The announcement was made by Minor League Baseball.

Johnston guided the Marauders to the first-ever Low-A Southeast League championship after sweeping Tampa 3-0 in the best-of-five series last month.

Bradenton posted the second-best record (71-48) in the Low-A Southeast League this season, trailing only the Tampa Tarpons (73-43). The club’s +92 run differential was also the second-best mark among all teams in the Low-A Southeast League, trailing only Tampa (+220).

Bradenton’s pitching staff finished the 2021 campaign with a single-season team-record 1288 strikeouts, which ranked first in the Southeast League and third in all of Low-A behind the San Jose Giants (1439) and Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (1310). Bradenton’s pitching staff also recorded 10 shutouts this season, which were tied for the third-most among all Low-A teams, trailing only the Charleston RiverDogs (15) and San Jose Giants (11).

Offensively, the Marauders ranked second in the Southeast League with 109 home runs, which ranked ninth among all teams in Low-A. Individually, the Marauders had four of the top seven home run hitters in the Low-A Southeast League (Hudson Head and Endy Rodriguez led the team with 15 apiece), while Rodriguez became the second player in Marauders history to lead the league in hitting (Josh Bell paced the Florida State League with a .335 average in 2014).

Prior to this year, Tony Beasley was the last member of the Pirates organization to take home Manager-of-the-Year accolades for a full-season Low-A team when he did so in 2002 with the Hickory Crawdads of the South Atlantic League.