With Opening Day less than three months away, two more signings were officially unveiled by the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. Player/coach Jeremy Owens is set to return to the club this season and veteran hitter Jose Herrera is set to join the Crabs to make it his seventh season playing in the Atlantic League. The two deals were announced by Blue Crabs manager Patrick Osborn.
Owens will return to Southern Maryland as a player/coach for the second year in a row. Owens, 33, was the club’s first-ever player/coach last season, appearing in 129 games, primarily at centerfield, while simultaneously working as the hitting coach. He joined the Blue Crabs on May 30, 2008 and is the franchise leader in games played (373), home runs (61), extra-base hits (141), runs scored (244), stolen bases (51), and walks (178). Like his former teammate and new manager Patrick Osborn, Owens is among the all-time team leaders in every major offensive category.
This past season Owens tied his own Blue Crabs record with 18 stolen bases, which he had first accomplished in 2008. Overall he batted .228 with 18 home runs and 64 RBI and played for the Liberty Division All-Stars in the 13th Annual Atlantic League All-Star Game on July 6 in Central Islip, NY. Entering his 14th professional season, Owens was selected by the San Diego Padres in the eighth round of the 1998 draft. He spent time in the Padres, Boston Red Sox, and Tampa Bay Rays farm systems, reaching Triple-A for all three organizations. In 2005, Owens made his Atlantic League debut with the Somerset Patriots. Owens has a .248 lifetime average with 200 home runs, 733 RBI and 352 stolen bases. As a Blue Crab he has crushed 61 homers, drove in 191 runs and stole 51 bases.
Jose Herrera has been an influential hitter in the Atlantic League for several years. Spanning six seasons in the league, he hit .337 in 115 games last year with the York Revolution. He has hit over .300 in each of his other four seasons in the league, including an eye-popping .357 for the Newark Bears in 2007, in addition to earning Atlantic League Championship Series MVP that year. In 2008, he hit .331, and had a career high-tying 16 homeruns, becoming the driving force of a Bears offense that was arguably the best in league history. The Dominican native reached the majors with the Oakland Athletics for part of the 1995 season, and most of 1996 when he hit .269 at the big league level.
The Blue Crabs now have four players officially under contract for the 2011 season.