The Staten Island FerryHawks will begin their inaugural season in the independent Atlantic League this April, and they’ve added two big names to their organization in the last week.
According to the ALPB Bulletin sent out by the league’s media relations staff, the FerryHawks have signed their first actual player, that being first baseman Kacy Clemens – a name you may know as one of the sons of none other than ex-Yankee Roger Clemens.
The other big name headed to Staten Island is Nelson Figueroa, the ex-Met who has been named as the FerryHawks’ initial pitching coach.
Kacy Clemens was drafted out of high school in 2013 by the Astros – one of his dad’s former teams – and then again in the eighth round in 2017 by the Blue Jays, another squad that counts The Rocket as an alum. He spent three seasons with the Jays organization, reaching as high as Double-A, and played for Team Texas in the pop-up Constellation Energy League during the 2020 MiLB shutdown.
The 27-year-old then spent last year with Kane County in the independent American Association, where he hit .278 with 12 home runs and 43 RBI in 77 games.
Figueroa, 47, was the Mets’ 30th-round pick in 1995, and spent three-plus seasons in the minors until being sent to Arizona with Bernard Gilkey at the 1998 trade deadline. He came back in 2008, and posted a 4.28 ERA over 115 2/3 innings in 2008 and 2009 at the MLB level as a Met.
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The Brooklyn native also spent part of 2012 in the Yankees organization, going 7-2 with a 3.96 ERA in 76 2/3 innings at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
He retired after spending 2014 in the CPBL in Taiwan, and served as a studio analyst for Mets broadcasts on SNY from 2015-2019.
He joins the staff of another former Met, Edgardo Alfonzo, who will manage the inaugural FerryHawks in 2022.
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