Photo by Tracy McCormack

Article By: Rogues Media

2025 team finishes fifth in Pacific Empire League

Rogues manager Kevin Olmstead set to return next summer

By Bryan Welch / Team Photo by Tracy McCormack | Rogues Media

MEDFORD, ORE — The first year of the Kevin Olmstead regime is in the books for the Medford Rogues. The team posted a 29-24 season for the first-year skipper from Grants Pass. The Rogues finished with a 7-18 in Pacific Empire League play.

[*Note: some stats taken from the league's Pointstreak scoring app and Medford Rogues scorekeeper BG Gould.]

A season of highs and lows came to an end with a 10-7 loss against the Humboldt Crabs on the road to close out the season Sunday afternoon in Northern California. More than 50 Rogues fans had made the trek to the Arcata Ball Park to cheer on their beloved pirates.

The Rogues, in their second year in the Pacific Empire League (PEL) had success early on. One season highlight — the Rogues getting a 3-2 win against the defending champs of the PEL, the Healdsburg Prune Packers on June 26. The Rogues were 18-8 at that point in the summer. The win was an uplifting victory because the Healdsburg roster consists of mostly D1 players. They were clearly the team to beat in 2025.

The Rogues picked up victories against all their league rivals, except the Humboldt Crabs. The Crabs are led by Medford’s own Cameron Sewell who is a sophomore at Sacramento State. Sewell had played for the Rogues in 2023 but ended up on the Crabs roster this summer through his connections with Sacramento baseball’s head coach Reggie Christiansen who is a former Crab and other family ties.

The Crabs finished in second place in the league with 37 wins and 8 losses after they swept the final 3-game PEL series with the Rogues in Arcata. They will face the 2024 PEL champs, the Healdsburg Prune Packers (36 wins, 5 losses) for the postseason series.  The Rogues season completed with a fifth place PEL finish in 2025.

The idea of creating chaos on the base paths, was a strategy of Coach Olmstead that wowed and awed the crowd at Harry and David Field this summer. The stolen base record was broken by the halfway point of the 2025 campaign. There was a total of 187 stolen bases this summer.

The players make summer collegiate baseball what it is. How about the dance master himself, Dylan Fanelli (RHP), who pitched lights out during the whole season. Fanelli had 4 wins with 27 strikeouts on the season. Fanelli, who danced to the song YMCA during the eighth inning at home games, became an instant summer legend at Harry and David Field.

Rogues batting leader Jordan Marian finished with a .358 average, followed by Johnny Alley with a .353 average and Frankie Rutigliano posted a .345 average. [Stats taken from BG Gould]

The Rogues saw attendance numbers rise this summer. In 2024 the Rogues averaged 854 guests per night. That number rose in 2025 averaging 903 fans coming through the gates at Harry & David Field. More than 370 hundred season ticket holder seats were sold before the season even started. Baseball fans experienced some of the most amazing colorful sunsets midway through the games in the Rogue Valley. 

Sunset photo by Jake Martin/Rogues Media

Several local players made an impact on the team. For starters, Troy Osborne grew up in Grants Pass and has been a Rogue since he was in high school. Osborne is somebody who made a big difference for the Rogues as the calendar turned to July as a catcher and outfielder.

Osborne recorded a .323 batting average, with 18 R and 18 RBIs and is attending the University of Portland this fall.

Caleb Randolph grew up going to Rogues games as a kid and is the former Comet of Crater High School and had the team high of 38 strikeouts. The Owl from Oregon Tech came into games in clutch moments and became the closer for Medford when in league play. Randolph had two saves in the season and recorded a 4.10 ERA this season when pitching.    

Two Rogues players signed professional contracts this summer. Bronson Chapple and Grants Pass native Caughlin Shults signed to play in the Frontier League.

Some baseball fans might be asking about why the Rogues are not in the postseason this summer season? The answer is because the Pacific Empire League is the most competitive league on the West Coast. More than half of the teams in the PEL had the top ten best records on the West Coast. However, the Rogues were in that top ten for a couple of weeks. 

The top ten best records are the combination of teams in the West Coast League (WCL) and the California Collegiate League (CCL). The PEL were included in the rankings as well. That list had some of the best teams on the West Coast, ranked like the Corvallis Knights (WCL) and the Santa Barbara Foresters (CCL). Those two historic programs were ranked in the top ten.

That’s nothing to sneeze at if you are a Rogues player. A famous person once said Rome was not built in a day and the Rogues fit that metaphor perfectly.

There were some good highlights to the season to build on and there were lessons learned with the pitching staff struggling in the second half of the season and the offense struggling to get runners across the plate.  But overall, the Rogues seem to be on the right path, and the right coach is in the right position with Kevin “Coach Chaos” Olmstead. Olmstead now heads across the country to Georgia to be an assistant coach for the Reinhardt Eagles in Waleska. Olmstead is set to return to the Rogue Valley for the 2026 campaign.

Rogues’ games for the first time in five years were broadcasted by yours truly. All the games this season were broadcasted on the Rogues Streaming Network. The games were broadcasted live on YouTube. I would like to say thank you to all the Rogues fans that tuned into the broadcast this season. Thank you for welcoming a recent college graduate from the San Joaquin Valley to be a part of the Rogue Valley community this summer.

Summer 2026 will be right around the corner before you know it. Let the countdown begin.

**Team Stats recorded on PointStreak scoring app, click here to find. Some stats may be inaccurate due to missing games.

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