The Victoria Eagles are pleased to announce that 2013 Manager Anthony Pluta has signed a two-year extension to be the Manager of the Victoria Premier Eagles for the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Pluta has managed the Premier Eagles during their current 2013 season and the Eagles are impressed with the results. “Anthony has done a great job this year with our Premier team," says Martin Winstanley, Chair of the Eagles program. "Graduating Eagles have earned scholarships to outstanding college programs and our younger players are developing sound baseball fundamentals. Anthony is a key asset in the future of the Eagles organization and this explains why we have signed him for a two-year term.”
Pluta expressed his satisfaction with the Eagles commitment. “I have really enjoyed working with the players this year. I view the two-year appointment as a vote of confidence by the Eagles in my ability to prepare our players to compete at the next level of ball. Over the next two years, my challenge is to continuously improve Eagles baseball for the benefit of not just the Premier Eagles, but also for the players on our Bantam AAA, Junior Premier and Midget AAA teams as well.”
Over the last 12 years, Pluta has combined playing professional baseball with managing high-performance high school-age baseball. He started playing ball as a talented outfielder and hitter but his strong arm led to a focus on pitching. Entering Grade 12 at Las Vegas High School, Pluta was ranked by Baseball America as a top US high school pitching prospect and he received scholarship offers from 33 NCAA Div. 1 programs.
While Anthony signed a Letter of Intent with Long Beach State University, the 17-year-old hard-throwing right-hander was picked in the third round of the 2000 MLB amateur draft by the Houston Astros. Deciding to forego college to play professional baseball, Pluta spent six years in the Astros organization where he established a reputation for hard work and an excellent fastball that hit 100 mph on the speed gun in 2002. The No. 5 prospect in the Astros system in 2001 and 2002, Pluta played professional ball for 12 years with six major league and two independent teams, including the Victoria Seals.
In off-seasons during his years of professional baseball, Coach Pluta found time to give back to the game. He is a US National Certified High School Coach and instructed at the Las Vegas Baseball Academy. In 2010, he was the Head Coach of Oaks Christian High School, one of the largest private high schools in California. More recently, he served as the Director of Baseball Operations for the Diablos Baseball Club in Las Vegas, a 12-team high-performance program with players ranging in age from eight to 18. Pluta has also organized numerous baseball academies and camps, securing instructors from his extensive network of former teammates playing in the major leagues.
During the last four years of his professional career, Pluta pursued university studies and in the spring of 2012, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. The 30-year-old Pluta is married to a Victoria resident and has made Victoria his permanent home.
