Blue Crabs Announce 2025 Coaching Staff

The Southern Maryland Blue Crabs announce 2025 coaching staff under manager Stan Cliburn, including former MLB Assistant Hitting Coach Jason Camilli, and a member of the Blue Crabs Inaugural team in 2008, and experienced Pitching Coach, Jason Blanton.

Camilli will serve as the Hitting Coach, while Blanton will handle the Pitching Coach duties.

Camilli has 19 years of professional Hitting Coach experience, all in affiliated organizations. He started his coaching career with the Washington Nationals organization and has coached all levels of MiLB from Rookie Ball to AAA within the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cincinnati Reds and Oakland Athletics organizations. Camilli has also been the Hitting Coach for the Arizona Fall League (Diamondbacks org) and has 12 Instructional Leagues under his belt.

In 2022, Camilli advanced to the Major Leagues as the Assistant Hitting Coach for the Philadelphia Phillies, where the Phillies saw a World Series appearance and consecutive NLCS appearances including one pennant (2022 & 2023 seasons)

During his playing career (1994-2002), he was selected out of Thunderbird High School by the Montreal Expos organization in the 2nd round (44th overall) and played 9 seasons primarily as an infielder with the Montreal Expos, Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels organization.

Camilli enters his first year as the Hitting Coach of the Blue Crabs.

Jason Blanton was originally drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 28th round of the 1998 Amateur Draft. Three years later, the Chicago Cubs selected him in the 12th round of the 2001 Amateur Draft and he played in their minor league system for three seasons.

Blanton pitched for the 2008 Blue Crabs in their first year of existence, putting up a 4-2 record with a 3.20 ERA.

He later turned to coaching in 2014 as a pitching coach. He started in the Seattle Mariners organization with the Pulaski Mariners in 2014 and Everett AquaSox in 2015. Blanton moved to the independent leagues in 2016 for a year with the New Britain Bees where he worked under Stan Cliburn as his pitching coach.

The Cleveland Indians hired Blanton in 2017 for the Lake County Captains. Blanton then spent the 2018-2019 seasons coaching the Mahoning Valley Scrappers. Blanton next joined the Boston Red Sox organization where he was the pitching coach for the FCL Red Sox in 2021-2022 and the Salem Red Sox in 2023. Overall, in his playing career, Blanton had a record of 5-6 with an ERA of 2.42 in affiliated ball.

This will be Blanton’s first year as the Pitching Coach of the Blue Crabs.

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