With a new manager and two members of the front office stepping down, the Martha’s Vineyard Sharks are in the midst of an off-season shakeup as the organization works to put its books into the black for the first time.

Manager John Toffey, who led the Vineyard collegiate summer baseball team to a second straight championship series, will be replaced. Sharks general manager Jerry Murphy has resigned, along with Bob Tankard, vice president of operations for the organization.

The changes come after another season in which Sharks revenues suffered considerably. On the field, the team had a successful season and advanced to the championship series of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League for the second year in a row.

Scott Lively, a part owner of the team, announced the hiring of Frank Leoni, head coach at Marymount University and former head coach at the College of William & Mary, earlier this week via press release. Mr. Leoni will be the fifth Sharks head coach since the team’s first season in 2011.

Jerry Murphy, general manager for the Sharks since the team started in 2011, has left the team.

Ray Ewing

Jerry Murphy, general manager for the Sharks since the team started in 2011, has left the team.

Ray Ewing

“We’ve had a different coach almost every year,” Mr. Lively told the Gazette. “It’s never been a guaranteed thing to us.” He underscored that the manager had not been fired, but that his contract had not been renewed.

“We contract coaches one season at a time,” he said. “If [John] Toffey wanted the job he certainly never called me or any of the other managers.”

Reached by telephone on Tuesday, Jerry Murphy said he had planned to bring Mr. Toffey back for the 2014 season. Regarding his own position, Mr. Murphy said he was told via phone call “out of the clear blue” on Sept. 9 that the team would be going in a different direction, with a younger person in his position. He was offered a lesser role but declined. He said Mr. Tankard resigned from the organization as well. Mr. Tankard could not be reached for comment.

“No one ever came to me to tell me,” Mr. Murphy said.

Mr. Lively confirmed that Mr. Murphy had been offered an advisory role with the team, and said the decision had been made as a way to cut costs for the team.

“The Sharks have struggled financially,” the owner said. “We cannot pay large salaries and have a losing business side of it.” He declined to say what the general manager salary was other than that it was a well-paid position.

Mr. Murphy and Mr. Tankard were hired by founder Chris Carminucci before the Sharks’ inaugural season and have been a visible presence representing summer league baseball on the Vineyard. Mr. Carminucci, of the Carminucci Sports Group, was originally the principal owner of the team and was a major player in establishing the Futures Collegiate Baseball League, the summer collegiate wooden bat league the Sharks compete in. The league was formed to give New England-based college players “a place to be seen,” Mr. Carminucci said in a telephone conversation. Half of every team’s roster must be from the region or attend college here. Mr. Carminucci divested from the Sharks after the 2012 season, but said he still follows the team.

Hiring decisions are now made by a managers committee composed of team shareholders. The Sharks are owned by a large group of investors who have contributed various levels of funding. The management committee was established last year, and consists of three shareholders — Mr. Lively, Charles Hajjar, and John Roberts — whose combined shares form a majority. Mr. Hajjar, a real estate developer and Vineyard property owner, has been an investor in the Sharks since their first season. Mr. Roberts, a prominent businessman who owns Island Food Products and whose son plays for the team, joined last year. Mr. Murphy had also been part of the committee.

Mr. Murphy said the managers group had not been involved in operations until this year. He created the Sharks roster for the first time in 2013, focusing on players from division three schools.

“You pick the best ballplayer off of a D3 team, he can compete at any level,” Mr. Murphy said. The team went on to win the Futures League championship for the first time.

The 2014 Sharks roster, also built by Mr. Murphy, was a mix of players from all levels of collegiate baseball and was arguably even stronger than its precursor. Five players were drafted by Major League Baseball — a first for the organization — and seven players were named to the Futures League All-Star team. The team posted a 30-23 regular season record. It was the top seed in the eastern division of the league. They advanced to the championship series for the second straight year, losing in a best-of-three series to the Worcester Bravehearts. The changes at the Sharks come after a season that, while successful, was more fraught than previous seasons. Roster pressure was consistent, and some players left the team mid-season. Mr. Murphy said that in the middle of the season Futures League commissioner Chris Hall made a trip to the Vineyard to mitigate the tensions. Mr. Hall could not be reached for comment this week despite repeated attempts by the Gazette.

But Mr. Lively confirmed the internal problems. “A lot of kids didn’t have a good experience,” he said. He said he had been careful to stay out of the baseball side of the Sharks. With Mr. Murphy now gone, he said “[the managers group] is involved in everything.”

Plans for the 2015 season began immediately after the summer schedule had wrapped. Mr. Murphy said several players from the 2014 team were set to return, but that some had committed only so long as John Toffey was the coach. Still, he said, the outfield for 2015 promised to be “tremendous.”

Over the past season, Mr. Murphy said, attendance levels suffered on a few key game nights because of rainouts and rescheduling, and although overall sponsorship increased, revenues fell. A planned source of new revenue for the team, a retail store for Sharks merchandise, never made it to the final stages.

The team missed out on what should have been one of its biggest weekends for both attendance and self promotion when the annual Fourth of July parade was moved to a later day due to rain, he said. The Sharks typically use the parade as a way to spread the word about the team, but could not participate because of the rescheduling.

Attendance during the final game of the postseason also fell from last year, after the final home game was moved up a day and forecasts of rain kept people from the ballpark.

But overall season attendance for the Sharks increased, according to numbers reported by BallparkDigest.com, which ranks summer collegiate league attendance. The Sharks sit in the middle of the Futures League with a total attendance of 17,910, compared to 15,674 last year. The Pittsfield Suns drew the most fans, with attendance at 46,913. “If the FCBL is saying that our attendance is up, it didn’t translate into dollars,” Mr. Lively said. He said the Sharks have had triple-digit losses — “in the hundreds of thousands of dollars”— each year since the team’s inception. He said he became involved because he loved baseball and had never expected to make money on his investment in the team, but that the sizable losses could not continue.

“Obviously cutting salaries is a big one,” he said, of potential remedies to the loss problem. More advertising was key as well, he said, and the retail store was still on the docket.

“What it really comes down to is encouraging people into the seats,” Mr. Lively said, and making the experience as much about entertainment as about baseball.

“Our goal as the management team is to just make sure that Sharks are here on the Island for the next several years and it’s not just a fly-by-night thing that shuts down,” he said.

The Sharks lease the diamond from the regional high school for a dollar a year, in turn providing maintenance and equipment for the field, which is used by varsity boys’ baseball and Babe Ruth teams.

Lights were added in 2013 to allow for night games in summer and boost attendance, but at considerable cost, Mr. Lively said. “We put in a couple hundred thousand dollars to finish the lights,” he said.

Mr. Carminucci, the former Sharks owner, said the prospect of forming a team on an Island was always a risky one because of the travel involved. He now works as a professional scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks, but is still on the board of directors for the league and is a Sharks fan.

“I love the team,” he said “I’ve been involved with a lot of different teams, and Martha’s Vineyard is really a love for me because of what an anomaly it is. To bring a team to an Island and to draw fans — it’s been successful in many ways.” Still, travel was a major concern both logistically and financially.

“That was the biggest thing — well, how are they going to get on and off?” Mr. Carminucci said. “The budget for Martha’s Vineyard is far more than it is for any other team because of that and housing.”

The team relies largely on the Patriot Boat to go to and from games; earlier this summer Mr. Murphy told the Gazette the travel budget was about $40,000.

The Sharks rely on host families, who are paid a small stipend but largely donate their space, to house players who come for the season. “The fact that it got off the ground and running and has been in business for four years is amazing,” Mr. Carminucci said. Much like the restaurant business, he said, many starter baseball teams fail. “[The Sharks] survived because of a lot of good people on that Island,” he said.