Coaches
Mitch Canham, Head Coach
Two-time National Champion Mitch Canham was named the 21st head coach in Oregon State baseball’s history on June 13, 2019.
Canham was revered by Beaver Nation in four years as a student-athlete, and is one of the most popular players in school history. He was a 2007 All-American and guided the Beavers to three trips to Omaha, culminating in National Championships in 2006 and 2007.
Canham, a native of Richland, Wash., came back to the collegiate ranks after spending three-and-a-half seasons as a manager in the Seattle Mariners’ organization.
• He led the Double-A Arkansas Travelers to a North Division First-Half Title in the Texas League after defeating Tulsa on June 9, just four days before becoming Oregon State’s head coach. In nearly half a season at the Double-A level, Canham amassed a 42-22 record.
• Canham posted a .545 winning percentage at the professional level, going 260-220. He tallied winning seasons in three of the nearly four seasons, including 86 wins at Single-A Clinton in 2016.
• Canham followed his first managerial season by moving to high Single-A Modesto of the California League in 2017. In his first of two seasons with the Nuts, he led the club to a 74-68 record and California League Championship. He was also named the California League Manager of the Year.
• Three players from the 2017 Modesto Nuts club have already reached the Major Leagues (as of June 2019), including outfielder Braden Bishop and pitchers Pablo Lopez and Matt Festa.
• Canham served as Bishop and Lopez’s manager at Clinton as well. There, he also helped advance the careers of Major Leaguers Alex Jackson, Zack Littell, Luiz Gohara and Osmer Morales.
Canham came to Oregon State from Lake Stevens, Wash., in 2004. He lettered three seasons for the Beavers - 2005-07 - and played in 183 games.
The Beavers won 46, 50 and 49 games, respectively, during his three on-the-field seasons, including 27 victories in the postseason. The 50 wins in 2006, at the time, marked an Oregon State single-season record.
• Canham batted .314 during his career, tallying 31 doubles, eight triples, 25 home runs and 152 runs batted in.
• The 152 RBI head into the 2020 season as the seventh-most in a career at Oregon State. The 25 home runs, meanwhile, rank ninth.
• He had an All-American season for the Beavers in 2007. He batted .326 as a redshirt junior, collecting 10 home runs and 59 RBI. He was also named an All-Pacific-10 Conference First-Team selection, a year after being named honorable mention.
• Canham was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2005 Corvallis Regional and was selected to the All-College World Series Team in 2007.
• He opened his postseason career by batting .353 with three doubles and nine RBI in 2005, helping Oregon State to a 5-3 record and the program’s first trip to Omaha since 1952.
• He followed that with a .289 batting average in 2006 and led the Beavers to their first of now three National Championships. Canham posted four doubles and 11 RBI in 13 games.
• Canham completed his career with a home run and six RBI in 2007 as the Beavers won their second title. Oregon State rolled to an 11-1 record en route to the championship.
As a business administration graduate, he excelled off the field while at OSU earning 2007 Academic All-America accolades and three-time membership on the Pac-10 Academic team. The five-time OSU Dean’s List member was also a leader on Oregon State’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and was presented the Beavers’ Glenn Klein Award for his community service contributions.
Following his senior season, the Pac-10 honored Canham as OSU’s male recipient of the 2007 Tom Hansen Award, presented annually to the outstanding senior student-athlete based on exhibition of the greatest combination of performance, and achievement in scholarship, athletics and leadership.
Canham’s contributions to local communities have continued during his professional career and include founding and serving as the CEO of BASE By Pros LLC, an organization that provides personalized baseball instruction and mentorship to kids across the country.
Following his stellar career at Oregon State, Canham was selected in the first round, 57th overall, by the San Diego Padres in the 2007 MLB First-Year Player Draft. He was the sixth first-round selection in Oregon State history.
He spent four seasons with the Padres’ organization, reaching as high as Triple-A Portland. He also spent time with the Oakland Athletics, St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals and Washington Nationals’ organizations before ending his professional playing career with the independent Lincoln Saltdogs in 2015.
Canham’s business administration degree from Oregon State came in 2011. He and his wife, Marlis, have two children, Mack and Mya.
College Education
Alma Mater: Oregon State, 2011
Degree: Business Administration
Playing Career
Collegiate: Oregon State (2004-07)
MLB Draft: 1st round of 2007 Draft (San Diego Padres)
Professional:
San Diego Padres system (2007-10)
Oakland Athletics system (2011)
St. Louis Cardinals system (2012)
Kansas City Royals system (2013)
Washington Nationals system (2014)
Eugene Emeralds, Northwest League (2007)
Lake Elsinore Storm, California League (2007-08)
San Antonio Missions, Texas League (2009-10)
Portland Beavers, Pacific Coast League (2010)
Midland RockHounds, Texas League (2011)
Sacramento River Cats, Pacific Coast League (2011)
Long Island Ducks, Atlantic League (2012)
Memphis Redbirds, Pacific Coast League (2012)
Northwest Arkansas Naturals, Texas League (2013)
Omaha Storm Chasers, Pacific Coast League (2013)
Harrisburg Senators, Eastern League (2014)
Lincoln Saltdogs, American Association (2015)
Ryan Gipson, Assistant Coach
Former infielder and 2006 national champion Ryan Gipson will be in his second as an assistant coach with Oregon State in 2020 after joining the program in October 2018.
Gipson came back to Oregon State after four seasons as the head coach at Linn-Benton Community College, where, in 2018, he led the Roadrunners to a 42-4 overall record and 29-1 mark in conference play.
LBCC was 119-58 (.672) in his four seasons as head coach, including a 72-16 (.818) mark the past two years.
Gipson lettered for the Beavers in 2005 and 2006, helping guide Oregon State to back-to-back trips to Omaha, including a national championship.
He played in 79 career games, starting 66, and batted .270 with 10 doubles, a home run and 36 runs batted in.
In 2005, he led the then-Pac-10 with a .500 on-base percentage and was named All-Pacific-10 Conference Honorable Mention. He batted .330 that season, collecting six doubles, a triple and 22 RBI while stealing nine bases. The Beavers made their first of three consecutive trips to Omaha that season.
A Central Point, Ore., native, he played for Shasta Community College prior to his career at Oregon State. He hit .358 as a sophomore and .344 as a sophomore.
Gipson served as an undergraduate coach for Oregon State in 2011 and 2012, then spent two seasons as an assistant coach at Dixie State in Utah. He graduated from Oregon State in 2006 with a bachelors of science in sociology.
Gipson is married to the former Ali Martin and the couple has two children, a daughter named Elliot, and a son, Parker.
Rich Dorman, Assistant Coach
Rich Dorman was appointed by Pat Casey Baseball Head Coach Mitch Canham as the team’s pitching coach on August 9, 2019. Dorman came to Oregon State after three seasons as the pitching coach at Grand Canyon and eight years in the Seattle Mariners organization.
• Dorman’s pitching staff posted a 4.16 earned run average in 2019, the second-best mark in Grand Canyon’s 14-year history at the Division I level. The Antelopes finished with a 3.02 ERA in conference play, which led the WAC and was the third-best mark in league play over a five-year stretch.
• The 2017 Antelopes, meanwhile, finished with a 3.57 ERA in conference play.
• Grand Canyon improved its win totals in each of his three seasons in Phoenix. GCU totaled 36 in 2019, up from 33 in 2018 and 29 in 2017. The Antelopes won 25 games in 2016 prior to his arrival.
• Grand Canyon was 57-18 in conference play in his three seasons and the club won 21-of-25 league series.
• Dorman mentored three pitchers who were drafted during his tenure at GCU. That includes right-handed pitcher Jake Wong, who was a third-round selection in 2018.
Dorman headed to Grand Canyon after eight seasons in the Minor League Baseball with the Seattle Mariners. He coached for four of those years at Single-A Everett (2009-10 and 2012-13). He also spent two years with the Arizona League Mariners (2014-15) and two one-year stints with Single-A Clinton (2011 and 2016). It was at Clinton in 2016 where he spent his first year on Canham’s staff as the Lumberkings’ pitching coach.
• Nine pitchers under Dorman’s tutelage during his time with the Mariners have gone on to pitch at the MLB level. That includes Taijuan Walker, Pablo Lopez, Art Warren, Emilio Pagan, Freddy Peralta, Zach Littell and James Paxton.
• Everett’s team ERA ranked in the upper half of the Northwest League in three of his four seasons. His staff posted a 3.22 ERA in 2010 and won a league title.
• Dorman’s 2011 pitching staff at Clinton tallied 1,166 strikeouts, the second in the Single-A Midwest League.
• Upon returning to Clinton in 2016, Dorman’s staff finished with a 3.12 ERA, good for second in the Midwest League. The team also posted a league-best 50 saves.
Dorman pitched in three games for Oregon State in 1999 before transferring to Western Baptist (now Corban) in 2000. He was taken in the 13th round of the MLB Draft that year by Tampa Bay; he was the first player ever selected out of Corban.
He pitched in the professional ranks for nine seasons, appearing in 217 games, with 128 starts. He was 52-43 with a 3.80 ERA.
Dorman spent two seasons at the Single-A level with the Rays’ organization before pitching in Seattle’s organization for five seasons, reaching as high as Triple-A Tacoma in 2005. He followed that with one year with the Florida Marlins organization before ending his career back with the Mariners in 2008, appearing with Double-A West Tennessee and Triple-A Tacoma. He ended his career with 60 games at the Triple-A level.
Dorman and his wife, Cathy, have two children, Alexa Anne and Blake William.
Darwin Barney, Assistant Coach
Former Oregon State infielder and Major League Gold Glove winner Darwin Barney joined the Oregon State staff as an assistant coach on August 7, 2020.
Barney, the 2012 National League Gold Glove winner at second base, came back to Corvallis three years after the completion of an eight-year Major League career. The Beaverton, Ore., native played in 814 games for the Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. Barney totaled 117 doubles, 15 triples, 201 runs batted in and 29 stolen bases over those eight seasons.
Barney was supposed to serve as the manager of the Triple-A Nashville Sounds in 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic cut the season short before any games were played. He was, however, able to work with the Texas Rangers in Spring Training in Surprise, Ariz.
He played in 191 games - he did not miss an OSU game - over three seasons for Oregon State, helping guide the Beavers to national titles in 2006 and 2007 and a trip to Omaha in 2005 as a freshman.
In those three seasons, Barney, who manned shortstop for OSU, collected a school-record 238 hits. His 765 career at bats rank first as well while his 152 runs scored ranks second. He is tied for eighth with 40 doubles and ranks 10th with 136 RBI.
Barney batted .311 with six triples, seven home runs and 36 stolen bases. He also walked 99 times to just 73 strikeouts.
He was selected in the fourth round, 127th overall, in the 2007 MLB First-Year Player Draft by the Chicago Cubs. Barney spent three seasons in the Cubs’ Minor League system before making his MLB debut on Aug. 12, 2010 at San Francisco.
Barney played in 542 games for the Cubs from 2010-14. He was named the 2012 National League Gold Glove winner. He committed just two errors that season, in 731 chances, for a .997 fielding percentage. That season, he also set the NL’s record for consecutive games without an error at 140 games, just three outs shy of the Major League record.
Barney concluded his Cubs’ career in 2014 and played in 24 games over two years with the Los Angeles Dodgers, moving on to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015. He appeared in 248 games for the Blue Jays, including 129 in 2017, his last season in the Major Leagues.
