James Frisbie’s involvement with independent professional baseball as a player, coach and manager stretches back more than two decades, but he enters his first season as the Grizzlies’ pitching coach in 2019.

Frisbie, also known as “Friz,” has managed in five different independent leagues, including the 2014 and 2015 seasons in the Frontier League as the skipper of the now-defunct Rockford Aviators, where Frisbie managed current St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Jose Martinez for the Venezuelan’s 28-game Frontier League tenure.

Frisbie, who will turn 47 on July 23, also spent last season managing the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs of the Atlantic League.

His professional playing career came exclusively as a pitcher in the since-folded Texas-Louisiana League, where he spent parts of four seasons with the Alexandria Aces, the Greenville Bluesmen and the Lafayette Bullfrogs (then known as the Bayou Bullfrogs) from 1998-2001. Frisbie pitched collegiately at Abilene Christian University.