Top of the Order: A List of Some Potential Managerial Candidates
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
If you’ve read even a couple installments of this column, you know that roster changes are my favorite things in baseball. Free agents, trades, extensions, IL stints… I don’t really care; they’re all interesting and fun to follow! My love for such machinations isn’t limited to players, though. I’m also a big fan of managerial and coaching changes, so much so that I have a personal Excel workbook that contains nothing but a list of the current coaching staffs.
So, now that we’ve reached the point of the season when the managerial carousel starts spinning — David Bell’s firing by the Reds on Sunday was the latest move — this is a great time to look over who teams could have on their candidate lists. At least three teams will be in the hunt for managers: the White Sox, Reds, and Marlins. Miami hasn’t officially moved on from Skip Schumaker, but he’s already discussing his tenure in the past tense. Teams with a managerial vacancy almost always cast a wide net, so I’ll do the same in running down some options.
Coaches With Managerial Experience
Bench coaches who’ve already managed in the majors are popular names to at least make it onto preliminary lists. These guys have been there, done that, and since they’ve had the experience there’s not a ton of uncertainty as to how they’d operate at the helm of a clubhouse.
Bench coach is the most common spot on a coaching staff to be filled by a former big-league manager; managers consult their bench coaches a lot for in-game decisions, and whenever the skipper is ejected or has to miss a game for whatever reason, the bench coach fills in as the acting manager. I count 11 bench coaches this season (including one associate manager) with big league managerial experience, either full-time or on an interim basis:
- Brad Ausmus, Yankees bench coach (former Tigers and Angels manager)
- Jeff Banister, Diamondbacks bench coach (Former Rangers manager)
- Miguel Cairo, Nationals bench coach (White Sox acting manager when Tony La Russa missed time with health issues)
- John Gibbons, Mets bench coach (Former Blue Jays manager)
- Fredi González, Orioles bench coach (former Marlins and Braves manager)
- DeMarlo Hale, Blue Jays associate manager (Guardians acting manager when Terry Francona missed time with health issues)
- Don Mattingly, Blue Jays bench coach (former Dodgers and Marlins manager)
- Charlie Montoyo, White Sox bench coach until he was fired in August (former Blue Jays manager)
- Mike Redmond, Rockies bench coach (Former Marlins manager)
- Jayce Tingler, Twins bench coach (Former Padres manager)
- Walt Weiss, Braves bench coach (Former Rockies manager)
Ex-Managers Between Jobs
Known quantities as they may be, I’d argue it’s at least nominally riskier to hire a manager who hasn’t been in an major league clubhouse or dugout for a while. Still, these names will certainly come up — many were in the running for various openings last offseason — even if they’re just bandied about more speculatively:
- Skip Schumaker (expected to leave the Marlins at the end of the season)
- David Bell (fired by the Reds on Sunday)
- Scott Servais (fired by the Mariners in August)
- Buck Showalter (last managed the 2023 Mets)
- David Ross (last managed the 2023 Cubs)
- Phil Nevin (last managed the 2023 Angels)
- Joe Maddon (last managed the 2022 Angels)
- Joe Girardi (last managed the 2022 Phillies)
Up-and-Comers
This has become an increasingly popular group from which to hire. Schumaker, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, Red Sox manager Alex Cora, Rays manager Kevin Cash, Blue Jays manager John Schneider, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts all managed their first seasons before turning 45. Possibilities in that mold include:
- Craig Albernaz (Guardians bench coach)
- Kai Correa (Guardians field coordinator, Giants interim manager for last three games of 2023)
- Daniel Descalso (Cardinals bench coach)
- Ryan Flaherty (Cubs bench coach)
- Don Kelly (Pirates bench coach)
- Danny Lehmann (Dodgers bench coach)
- Clayton McCullough (Dodgers first base coach)
- Alyssa Nakken (Giants assistant coach)
- Kristopher Negrón (Mariners first base coach)
- Will Venable (Rangers associate manager)
- Johnny Washington (Angels hitting coach)
- Rickie Weeks Jr. (Brewers associate manager)
Coaching Staff Lifers
Hey, sometimes it just takes awhile. Rob Thomson led the Phillies to the doorstep of a World Series title in his first year as a manager at age 58; Brian Snitker didn’t take the reins in Atlanta until he was 60. We’ll finish up the list with the baseball lifers on coaching staffs, who’ve maybe interviewed for a managerial opening here and there, but who have not yet been hired for the top job:
- Sal Fasano (Braves catching coach since 2018, minor league manager for four seasons)
- Rodney Linares (Rays bench coach, minor league manager for 12 seasons)
- George Lombard (Tigers bench coach, major league coach since 2016)
- Kevin Long (Phillies hitting coach, has coached on four different MLB teams, uninterrupted, since 2007)
- Hensley Meulens (Rockies hitting coach, finalist for Yankees job that went to Aaron Boone, coached all but one year in the majors since 2010)
Skip Schumaker is an odd case, a young manager with some potential who is leaving his team because they fired his former boss. It doesn’t seem like he will have to settle for a dead-end job like the White Sox. There will be more attractive jobs than that. The Giants and Cardinals may make changes at the front office or managerial level or both. The Braves might move on at some point in the next couple of years if they miss the playoffs a couple of years. Even the Reds are a better landing spot than Chicago.
The Cardinals should fire Marmol, but I have a feeling they stick with him.
The Cardinals have been a drama factory for the last couple of years. They have to do something, and but if that “something” is hiring Chaim Bloom to run baseball ops the drama factory is going to kick up another notch.
What they should do is go after James Click or Amiel Sawdaye and let him hire a new manager.
Their second best option would be to keep the front office structure in place, fire Marmol, and hire Schumaker. I think time has probably run out for the Cards front office but they’re not super bad either so it wouldn’t be the end of the world to see if they can adapt. This would be the best “continuity” move. Especially if they want to follow their pattern and only hire people with ties to the Cardinals organization. Not a whole lot of candidates in that pool who are available, and Schumaker is one.
The worst options all involve hiring Chaim Bloom to run the show. I think he probably needs to go to a place like Tampa Bay where fans are desperate enough that they don’t care about chaotic roster moves. That’s definitely not St. Louis. But I would have to give special attention to the idea of having Bloom as head of baseball decision making and Oli Marmol in the manager’s seat. It would take years to recover from that.
Have any insight as to why the Cards axed Shildt?
The official reason is that Shildt resisted incorporating analytic insights into managing. There are also some rumors about his ability to manage the other coaches, even that he may have been verbally abusive towards some of them, but that has been steadfastly denied by all parties.
Shush with those GM options for the Cardinals. Those two are who the Bucs are after!
I can see the Cards hiring Yadier Molina as the manager.