FORT MYERS, Fla. — The 2021 season saw some noteworthy changes for Fort Myers’ minor league baseball team. The club moved from the Florida State League that the team was a part of since 1926, into the Low-A Southeast league as part of Major League Baseball’s minor league reorganization plan. The team was also rebranded for the first time since moving to Fort Myers in 1992, as the team was renamed from the Fort Myers Miracle to the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels.

The team also brought in a new manager, Brian Meyer. Meyer became the team’s manager after Aaron Sutton announced his plans to step away from the sport.

Meyer is an experienced manager with more than ten years of coaching baseball. A native of Cincinnati, Meyer was an infielder for Division III Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio. He was Otterbein’s hitting coach for three years after graduating. He also served as a recruiting coordinator for the Cardinals.

Meyer entered the Division I ranks as a manager with Wright State in 2010. He won two consecutive Horizon League titles with the Red Raiders. In 2012, he went on to manage Tulane’s baseball team. He brought the Green Wave to the NCAA tournament in his last two seasons with the school.

Meyer was hired as an assistant coach for Butler University in 2017 and would soon be hired by the Minnesota Twins organization in 2020. Meyer managed three All-American players and seventeen MLB draft picks during his time managing college baseball.

Meyer was chosen to be the new manager of the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels at the start of the 2021 season. He was brought in to manage the team, which is the lowest-ranked minor league club in the Minnesota Twins system.

The Mighty Mussels went 60-54 in Meyer’s first year as the team manager. The club had one of the better home records in the league, as the team went 34-24 at Hammond Stadium. The team’s record was also the third best in the league, but it was not enough to get the team in the abbreviated playoffs for the 2021 season. The team was 8.5 games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates’ affiliate and the eventual Low-A Southeast champion, the Bradenton Marauders.

The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels is looking forward to competing for the playoffs in 2022, especially since the league will return to a more traditional playoff format for the coming season. Meyer will be aiming to develop the talented young players in the Twins’ system with the Mighty Mussels while aiming to lead the team to its first league title since 2018.

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