Ivan Rodriguez (Hoofdklasse)

Ivan Rodriguez played and coached in Venezuela. After a playing career, Rodriguez focuses on coaching since 1994, especially in coaching infielders. In 2000, he set up a winter-program in Venezuela to prepare infielders for the next season.

In 2011, he came to the Netherlands and is involved in player development in the Netherlands as a coach of Scimitars Baseball Academy, which is one of the Baseball Academies in The Netherlands and is situated in the center of the country.

He coached their junior team. He ended the 2011 season by leading the Scimitars junior team to the Dutch title. Took a Little League team to the 2nd place in the Dutch competition and he also went to South Carolina to take part to the Big League World Series 2011 with his team.

The same year Rodriguez also was added to the coaching staff of the Dutch National Junior Team that won the European Junior championship in Gijon.

For his contributions to the development of talented players, in 2011 Rodriguez won the Bill Arce Award, which was introduced by The Dutch Baseball Federation and will be handed out annually to someone in the field of talent development; he was in the running for the Best European Coach of that year.

In 2012, Rodriguez was the head coach of the Scimitars Baseball Academy Junior's team and one of the coaches of the Rookie Team of HCAW and coached for the Netherlands at the European Cadets 2012 Cup; with this team, Rodriguez won the European Cadets Cup in Ostrava, Czech Republic as well. Later on, he went with the Dutch National Junior Team to Seoul as a coach for the 2012 World Junior Championship then was promoted to head coach of the HCAW's Hoofdklasse squad in the Dutch Major League competition for 2013. He was 14-27 that year and 12-28 in 2014.

Rodriguez then left for Germany as the new head coach of powerhouse Regensburg Legionäre. He led the team to a 24-4 record in 2015, but they fell in the finals 3 games to 2 to the Heidenheim Heideköpfe. In 2016, he was 16-5 and only a half game behind the Mainz Athletics when he was suddenly let go in favor of Kai Gronauer.