The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers will find out this season if 13 is a lucky number.
Nick Stanley, who was the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers hitting coach in 2021 and 2022, will be the team’s 13th manager when the team takes the field at Fox Cities Stadium on April 2 against the Beloit Sky Carp.
“It’s really exciting,” Stanley said about his return to Appleton. “I came here in 2021 for the first time with a really young son and another one on the way. And now they’re coming back as 6- and 4-year-olds.
“From a family standpoint, we fell in love with the area. We’ve got friends here that we stayed in touch with. And then on the baseball side, like just that atmosphere being back, you know, in the summertime when the weather is nice. The renovations of the ballpark are going to be new to me. I’m really, really looking forward to that.”
Stanley, who spent the last two seasons as manager of the Carolina Mudcats after having been the bench coach of the Biloxi Shuckers in 2023, has seen a lot of top-flight talent make its way through the Milwaukee Brewers’ farm system.
“It’s really fun when you have really talented players,” said Stanley, who last season had top Brewers prospects Jesus Made, Luis Pena and Andrew Fischer among others on his Mudcats roster. “It’s really fun to watch those guys and my role is to try to create an environment where the players, along with the coaches, can really maximize their talents and move on to the next level.
“It’s also a big responsibility, right? The Brewers have high hopes for these guys.”
And while the Brewers and their fans have high hopes for the players on the Timber Rattlers roster making a name for themselves one day at American Family Field in Milwaukee, the fans who pack the park at Neuroscience Group Field at Fox Cities Stadium would also like to see wins here.
That brings about the age-old question of which is more important at the High-A level – winning games or developing players?
“The way that I think about it and the way I sort of relate to it is that developing winning habits are the kind of ingredients that lead to winning games and those are the things that players can do every single day, no matter how they’re going personally or how the team is doing,” Stanley said.
“If we’re operating with winning habits in terms of preparation, the way we play the game,” Stanley said. “That’s really where I focus my energy. I think that leads to winning games. But we’re not focused on the outcomes but more on the ingredients that lead to that.”
While it’s still to be determined which players will make up the Timber Rattlers roster in 2026, Stanley pointed to youth and talent as the things fans will see.
“We’ve been most of the time the youngest team in the [Midwest League] and a lot of times the most talented team in the league,” he said. “I think that the next wave of talent is just going to keep coming. The way we drafted and signed players internationally and the way these guys develop as they come through, you see that and I think it’s going to be more of the same.”
From a coaching standpoint, with often the youngest team in the league, Stanley said the coaches must keep in mind that when players on the team struggle, it’s probably the first time many of them have experienced failure.
“For me, it’s a good thing that we want these guys to experience so they can gain some tools on how to get out of it,” Stanley said.
And as a coach, how can he or his staff help a player get out of that rut?
“Sometimes it’s a quiet conversation where no one’s watching,” Stanley said. “Sometimes it is a little firmer and sometimes it is just cracking a joke or something. You know what? Every player is unique in their personality. You really have to have the pulse of what’s called for at the time.”
It is important for Stanley and his crew of coaches to develop these players to be the Brewers of the future, and it is something he takes pride in.
“We’re preparing these guys for the major leagues,” Stanley said. “We’re also preparing them to win in the major leagues because that’s been the standard and that’s what is important to us. We take a lot of pride when the major league team is in the playoffs seven out of eight years or whatever it is. That comes from building a system, and thriving in that environment means a lot to us.”
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Wisconsin Timber Rattlers manager Nick Stanley excited to return to area