Sharnol Adriana

Sharnold Leonard Adriana

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 205 lb.
• School Martin Methodist Junior College

• Born November 13, 1970 in Willemstad, Curaçao

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Sharnol Adriana is a two-time Olympian who was a Mexican League star early in the 21st Century.

Up and down the Blue Jays ladder

Adriana began his professional baseball career after being taken in the 15th round of the 1991 amateur draft by the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays assigned him to their St. Catharines Blue Jays farm team, where he hit .206/~.311/.341 as the regular shortstop. In '92, he was the second baseman for the Dunedin Blue Jays and he hit .276/~.369/.333. In 1993, the 22-year-old was struggling with the AA Knoxville Smokies, where his line read .215/~.308/.243 as the backup to Joe Lis Jr..

In '94, Sharnol hit .249/.359/.344 for Knoxville while playing almost every position. He also appeared in 17 games with the Syracuse Chiefs, only hitting .133/.278/.200. In 1995, he was back in Knoxville, this time as the main shortstop and batting .284/~.362/.391 as he was solving AA.

In the 1995-1996 Australian Baseball League, Adriana hit .341 to help the Sydney Blues to the title. He was named the second-team All-Star third baseman behind Perth's Jason Hewitt.

Moving up to Syracuse in '96, he played every infield position plus the outfield. Used primarily at third base, he hit okay (.281/~.335/.459), showing improved power and speed (18 for 25 in steals). Toronto did not call him up and the next year, he was sent back down to Knoxville, where he only hit .236/~.335/.334 as the regular second baseman.From there, things got worse, as he returned to his stop five years earlier, Dunedin. He batted .286/~.370/.498 for Dunedin and swiped 18 in 24 tries as the utility man.

Getting back in the swing of things in Newark

Adriana moved to the Newark Bears and shined for the independent team. He hit .334/?/.518 and was second in the Atlantic League in average to Angel Espada. He hit 16 homers and drove in 77, second on a team with several ex-major leaguers. He made the league All-Star team as a utility man.

Mexican League mainstay and international competitions

Sharnol moved to the Mexican League in 2000, returning to Newark for a brief .118 spell. Splitting the year between the Cafeteros de Córdoba and the Campeche Pirates, he had a .326/~.441/.603 line, stole 24 in 36 tries, homered 29 times and led the Liga with 113 runs scored. He also spent time representing The Netherlands in the 2000 Olympics. In '01, he had another 20-20 year (21 SB, 28 HR, five shy of league leader Boi Rodriguez), batting .313 and slugging .581 for Campeche while scoring 89 runs. He also batted .254 with four homers for Newark. In the 2001 Baseball World Cup, Adriana hit .188/.289/.250 as the Dutch team DH.

In 2002, he reversed course during year, returning to Cordoba from Campeche and hitting .317 and slugging .520. During the 2002 Intercontinental Cup, Adriana hit .350/.435/.350. He batted .301/?/.488 for Cordoba in the '03 season. He had the best average in the 2003 European Championship, hitting .500/~.613/.583 for the champion Dutch squad. He scored 9 runs in 8 games and his 7 walks were two behind leader Claudio Liverziani. Adriana hit .391/.407/1.043 in the 2003 Baseball World Cup with 10 RBI, 6 runs, 3 doubles and four homers in six games. He became the third player in Cup history to hit three homers in a game, following Antonio Muñoz (1980 and Luis Casanova (1990). Adriana had his three-homer game against France. He was named the Cup All-Star first baseman (beating out Yasuyuki Saigo, Olmedo Saenz, Tae-kyun Kim and Kendry Morales) and tied for third in homers, one behind Takashi Yoshiura and Audes de Leon.

He continued to pummel the ball in 2004, hitting .297/~.422/.480 with 7 HR for the Yucatan Lions and Monclova Steelers. He again appeared for the Dutch Olympic squad that year.

Adriana bounced back in '05, as the 34-year-old veteran hit .368/.452/.634 for the San Luis Potosi Tuneros, leading the Liga in runs (105) and total bases (277), stealing 32 (caught 21 times though, the most) and smacking 25 homers. In the 2005 Baseball World Cup, he hit .273/.314/.576 with 13 RBI in 10 games.

Playing for the Netherlands in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Adriana went 2 for 6 with a double. In the 2006 Intercontinental Cup, he hit .405/.511/.568 with 10 RBI in nine games. He was third behind Yoandry Urgellés and Young-seop Bae in RBI and made the all-tournament team at first base.

Returning to San Luis Potosi in '06, Sharnol had another good year at .354/.440/.590 with 31 SB (third in the Liga) in 45 tries, 22 homers and 91 RBI. He then joined the Calgary Vipers, hitting .341 and slugging .473 in 91 AB. He stole 8 bases with the team.

In 2007, Adriana batted .351/.442/.499 and stole 22 but was caught 15 times. He played for the Dutch team that won the Gold Medal in the 2007 European Championship and made the All-Star team at DH. In the competition, Adriana batted .400/.568/.640 with 10 runs and 11 RBI in 8 games. Adriana hit .316/.386/.447 with 7 runs and 7 RBI in 10 games as the Dutch team DH in the 2007 Baseball World Cup. Adriana came up big against the South Korean national team with a home run on his 37th birthday to help the Dutch club stay alive, then he singled home Raily Legito with the winner in a stunning upset of the Cuban national team. Adriana and Legito had played in the only prior game in which the Netherlands beat Cuba, in the 2000 Olympics.

Despite not playing in the Korea Baseball Organization, Adriana almost won the Home Run Derby prior to the 2008 KBO All-Star Game. 3 members of the Dutch Olympic team and players from the Cuban Olympic squad competed against the KBO All-Stars. Adriana hit 7 home runs in the scheduled final round, 6 more than Ariel Pestano and as many as Jae-hong Park; this forces another round, in which Park outhomered Adriana.

As the captain of the Dutch squad in the 2008 Olympics, the first baseman hit .217/.250/.391 with only two runs and one RBI in 7 games; he still wound up with the third-best OPS on a poor-hitting team. He hit a solo homer against Weiliang Li in the Netherlands' win over host China and got their lone hit in a loss to Stephen Strasburg and the US.

Adriana hit .328/.419/.523 with 17 homers and 83 runs in 110 games for the Veracruz Eagle. After the Mexican League season ended, he joined DOOR Neptunus for his debut in Hoofdklasse; at the time, Neptunus was second in the league and fighting for its first title in 3 years. Adriana's first game in Hoofdklasse came on August 31 as the cleanup hitter and DH in Neptunus's 14-4 win over rival Kinheim. He was 1 for 3 with a walk, 2 times hit by pitch, run and RBI.

Adriana went 4 for 16 in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, serving as the main Dutch DH. He got a key hit in their 3-2 win over the Dominican national team; facing Edinson Volquez, he singled home Sharlon Schoop with the second Dutch run and an error by Hanley Ramirez on the play scored a third.

Adriana hit .262/.338/.356 in 54 games for two Mexican League teams in 2009 then returned to Neptunus in the Netherlands.

Post Playing Career

Adriana joined the 2015 Rojos del Águila de Veracruz as a hitting coach before ascending to the manager's position on May 28th. He also coached in winter ball after that season, starting as the hitting coach for Tobis de Acuyucan before moving to the Yaquis de Obregón in the same role on December 18, 2015. This was his last season coaching in Mexico.

He became a coach with the Frisco Rough Riders in 2016 and Hickory Crawdads in 2017. He returned to managing with the DSL Rangers 1 in 2018. He worked as a coach with one of the DSL Rangers teams in 2019. In 2020 Adriana was scheduled to be the hitting coach for the Spokane Indians before COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the minor league season. He was a hitting coach for the ACL Rangers in 2021-2022. Adriana stayed with the Rangers in 2023, though his role is unclear. He may have remained with the ACL Rangers. Whatever his role, in September he joined the major league club for the final month and their subsequent successful run to the 2023 World Series championship. In 2024 Adriana served as a roving hitting coach for the Arizona and Dominican Republic based rookie teams.

Year-By-Year Managerial Record

Year	Team	League	Record	Finish	Organization	Playoffs	Notes
2015	Leones de Yucatán	Mexican League	66-46	2nd	None	Lost in 2nd round
	Rojos del Águila de Veracruz	Mexican League		15th	None		Replaced Hector Estrada

Sources: 1992-2007 Baseball Almanacs, Worldbaseballclassic.com, Minorleaguebaseball.com, 1995 and 2005-2006 Baseball Guides, The Mexican League: Comprehensive Player Statistics by Pedro Treto Cisneros, 2005 Baseball World Cup site, Mister Baseball European baseball site, 2003 European Championship stats, IBAF site, 2008 Olympics