The Nationals announced that bench coach Miguel Cairo is now the club’s interim manager. He’ll take over for Dave Martinez, who was fired yesterday. The Nats are off today, so Cairo will make his debut as Washington’s skipper tomorrow in St. Louis.
Cairo, 51, played in the majors from 1996 to 2012. After his playing days were over, he did some front office and player development work. The White Sox hired him to serve as bench coach ahead of the 2021 season, under manager Tony La Russa. Late in the 2022 campaign, La Russa had to step away from the club due to a health issue. Cairo took over and served as acting manager for the remainder of the campaign. The Sox went 18-16 with Cairo at the helm.
Going into 2023, Cairo got some consideration for sticking around but the Sox decided to hire Pedro Grifol as the manager instead. Cairo spent that year working for the Mets in the minors, then got hired to serve as Washington’s bench coach going into 2024.
In-season managerial firings often lead to the bench coach taking over the reins. The Nats are looking to shake things up as they trend towards a sixth straight losing season. In addition to Martinez, president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo was also fired. Assistant general manager Mike DeBartolo is now the interim general manager.
With both the general manager and the manager currently having the “interim” tag, the future is quite hazy. The club has the top pick in this month’s draft. They will also have to navigate the deadline and play out the remainder of the schedule. Cairo will do his best to guide the Nats from the dugout until the end of September. Perhaps his performance in the coming months could help him with his job prospects beyond that, either with the Nationals or other clubs. It’s unclear at this time who will take over Washington’s bench coach job.
Photo courtesy of Mitch Stringer, Imagn Images
Good for Miguel! Been waiting for his chance to lead a team.
I take that back, I forgot he led the White Sox at the end of the 2022 season. But hopefully this turns into a full time managerial opportunity for him somewhere.
I don’t know. Martinez was an outfielder who I’m pretty sure played a little first. Cairo was a true utility player. Not a 4th outfielder.
Beats Miguel Tripoli I suppose.
Yeah love that guy! He could play anywhere on the diamond. Definitely one of my favorites. I put him up there with Gio Urshela.
Are you serious? Have you ever heard this guy talk?
In other words, Dave Martinez without being Dave Martinez.
Exactly! Except you could understand Davey when he talked.
Who will be the Guardians’ interim manager?
Stephen Vogt is still manager.
The Guardians would be fools to fire Vogt. The team massively over performed last year which lead to unrealistic expectations
I thought Miguel would get a shot long before now. Great utility player in his day and a smart (baseball IQ) guy.
I liked him when he was with our Reds.
And you know this how?
Beats Miguel Tripoli I suppose.
Miguel Giza sounds much better.
Might be a good choice for the Angels in 2026.
If Mike Rizzo hadn’t been fired, he would’ve picked Gerardo Parra.
Because he’s such a good baserunning coach 🙄
Would they have played Baby Shark when he came to the mound to make a pitching change?
@Baseball Babe Rizzo would have hired Parra because he’s obsessed with the 2019 World Series run. Pretty much every inch of Nats Park is covered with highlight images from that year. Rizzo was probably fired because he didn’t want to fire Dave Martinez.
@phenomenalajs Yes they most certainly would have played Baby Shark during mound visits.
Ownership didn’t like the manager telling the truth about the players.
“Ownership didn’t like”…I don’t think that’s what drove this dual firing. I heard on MLB Network that Rizzo Martinez had contract option dates coming up in a few weeks.
The team acted now because they weren’t going to pick up their options and didn’t want two lame ducks leading the team. The owners were not predisposed to have Rizz and Martinez be their leaders well into the future.
They had ample opportunity to fire them over the last lacklustre few seasons, and especially over the last year and last offseason. There’s something more than just the lame duck situation.
As expected, the Nationals stay 100% in-house with Rizzo and Martinez replacements. Looks like more of the same coming for them.
Suggest looking up the meaning of “interim”.
The interim manager and GM are almost always in-house.
The interim GM had 0 chance of coming from outside the organization a week before the draft. If you thought for one second that it might well you’re probably not very intelligent. Too much goes on within the scouting depts in an organization to have an outsider come in and run the draft after a week.
Suggest looking it up yourself. My point stands. As expected they stayed 100% in-house for replacements for Rizzo and Martinez.
They have to stay in house for the front office for the time being. They are too close to the draft and to the trade deadline.
They can hire an external candidate but they must interview and give preference to minority candidates.
DeBartolo was apparently not part of the draft team over the last couple of years. He was more focused on the business side of baseball operations. Going to be interesting.
Rare miss for you dude. How would it be practical or beneficial to get external candidates in to replace people fired mid-season? Let’s see what happens when they’re filling these roles on a non-interim basis early in the off season.
Thanks for the compliment. Just stating the obvious for all the Nats fans that thought they were bringing in someone to change the culture there, As expected, they went with guys that help make the team what it is today to take over on an interim basis.
I think that’s hard to gauge from the outside though. Working under the guys who got sacked doesn’t inherently mean that the interims agreed with all of their decisions and philosophies. And when you consider the field manager role specifically in the context if martinez’s recent public comments it’s possible that Cairo hasn’t lost the clubhouse like martinez reasonably could have. Ultimately, it’s just not pragmatically reasonable to judge commitment to change based on interim appointments imo. Continuity and immediate availability are basically the inherent needs to fill these needs on an interim basis mid-season. It’s just not the time when you make a hard pivot and would be more disruptive than useful at this point in the season.
DeBartolo was on the money side of baseball operations. Appointing him won’t change the FO culture or baseball philosophies. The problem was never the clubhouse in Washington, it was the pitching. That problem remains. They will still be one of the worst in baseball.
As I said, hiring from within was expected and it creates more of the same for the team this season. Nats fans on here thought that there might be real change immediately with Rizzo and Martinez both gone, but that just isn’t going to happen.
Maybe the next permanent POBO will change the culture, but that has to happen organically, must start at the bottom of the baseball development ladder and work its way up, and it has to be systemic. That takes time. None of that will happen in 2025 and probably not in 2026 either.
Where is David Ross
At home in Tallahassee? Other than being bench coach for Team USA in the WBC, did he get another job in baseball after the Cubs cut him loose?
Sorry, he is the bullpen coach with Team USA, not bench coach.
The only manager fired for being too good but not good enough.
Move’em back to Montreal!
Try locking up Wood and Gore and long term looks up regardless of who takes over. Let their control years continue to tick down and the rebuild just keeps going around and around.
Nah. Keep young guys motivated to perform and avoid IL. Clubs should be thrilled to pay high arb salaries where goals are aligned. It’s amazing how guys who perform well for a short time lose that edge or often are on IL a lot once they lock in a sizable guaranteed $ extension where they then make same salary regardless of performance. Atlanta is feeling that now, WSox got burned thinking it was so brilliant, etc.
Wood’s parents live 3 houses up the street from me
I foolishly thought the Nats would bring in a real manager.
That basically never happens with midseason firings unless the “real” manager is already on the staff as a bench coach or something.
We’ll see who they hire for the real job in a few months.
Being the negative person I am, I can’t stop wondering if the owners fired these guys rather than extending them simply so they could hire someone cheaper.
Probably. The problem with the Nats is ownership, so expect more disappointments.
The salary costs for gm and manager, while not chump change in an absolute sense, are relatively insignificant compared to player salaries. A lot was made of Craig counsell’s salary with the cubs but it was basically the cost of a decent free agent reliever and that’s at the extreme high end.
Of COURSE they did! An inarticulate foot soldier who was only there because of Davey Martinez. I thought they were cleaning house or something, This is the best they can do?
do none of the people who post here, know what “interim” means?, such dumb comments