The Padres’ managerial search has reached the interview stage, as The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reports that the club spoke with bench coach Brian Esposito on Monday. The 46-year-old Esposito is the first candidate known to have an interview in the books with the Padres, though the team may have already sat down with other internal candidates like pitching coach Ruben Niebla or special assistant Mark Loretta. As far as external candidates, Albert Pujols is set to interview with San Diego on Wednesday, as the future Hall-of-Famer continues to explore his first foray into managing at the MLB level.
Esposito is technically a former teammate of Pujols, as one of Esposito’s three career Major League games as a player came with the 2007 Cardinals. That cup of coffee in St. Louis and two games with the 2010 Astros comprised the big league portion of Esposito’s 13-year playing career (2000-12) that was otherwise spent in the minors with seven different organizations.
After hanging up his glove, Esposito went on to manage at multiple levels of the Pirates’ farm system, including a five-year run as the skipper with Triple-A Indianapolis. Beginning with the 2022 season, Esposito joined the Padres first as a minor league manager, then as a catching coach and game strategy assistant on the big league staff in 2023-24. The Padres didn’t have a formal bench coach in 2024 (Mike Shildt’s first season as manager), but Esposito was promoted to the job prior to last season.
Unless he gets the manager’s job himself, Esposito’s status could be up in the air heading into 2026, along with the rest of the San Diego coaching staff. Naturally a new skipper will get some say in assembling his own staff, and for the bench coach role in particular, a manager usually prefers to assign that role to a long-time colleague. Esposito’s chances of remaining as bench coach could be improved if a familiar face like Niebla or Loretta gets the job, though since both would be first-time MLB managers, they could prefer to have a more seasoned voice or a former ex-skipper as their top lieutenant.
Hiring Esposito would be a way for San Diego to maintain some continuity in the dugout. The Padres are coming off consecutive trips to the playoffs and didn’t think they’d be making a managerial search at all, prior to Shildt’s surprising resignation. Bringing in an entirely new face like Pujols might be more of a shake-up than the Padres would necessarily want to make, which could be why the early stages of the team’s search has largely been centered around familiar names. Beyond Esposito, Niebla, and Loretta, former Padres bench coach Ryan Flaherty and ex-Padres catcher Nick Hundley have been linked to the job (though Hundley recently turned down the Giants’ managerial job due to family concerns).
Another known Padres figure has expressed interest, as longtime broadcaster and former big league catcher Carlos Hernandez tells Lin that he would like to be considered for the manager’s position or possibly a coaching role. Hernandez’s 10-year MLB playing career includes parts of three seasons in San Diego (1997-2000), and his post-playing endeavors included managing in the Mexican League and Venezuelan Winter League, as well as stints as a catching coordinator with the Padres and Diamondbacks. For the last 14 years, Hernandez has been calling Padres’ TV and radio broadcasts as a Spanish-language announcer.
I heard Bob Melvin is available.
I found the middle finger emoji, dont make me use it! Haha
XD
I have an equal chance as Bob Melvin.
I think you have a decidedly better chance than Melvin.
No chance Bob wants back in there.
With payroll restrictions and a thinned out farm system it seems unlikely the Padres will be able to overtake the Dodgers anytime soon.
The Padres have proven that they have no payroll restrictions by exceeding what the media thinks they can do every season, and the farm system has churned out more prospects that hit the majors than any other team over the past 6 years. I think they will be just fine.
Even trolls like you need to be better. Now you can head back to your Dodgers Reddit.
I think the Padres and Cubs might be the best competition the Dodgers faced all year. They do need a couple starting pitchers to compete, but maybe it will be Morejon and Miller?
Both began their career as starting pitcher and either would be fine. If they convert a reliever, I hope it’s just one of them and not both.
That’s not what Gruepner said yesterday. They have restrictions. Just like everybody. This issue is that a lot of their fans are too weak to acknowledge it, let along talk about it like an adult.
The padres payroll is the most tired subject. The main issue is that the guys the Dodgers pay to be stars play like it, while the guys the padres pay to have been duds recently, especially JR.
Are you sure you are watching MLB and the Padres? The reason I ask is Tatis had a 5.9 bWAR and 6.1 fWAR. That is #12 and #10 in MLB respectively. He was an exceptionally good player this season.
On the Dodgers only Ohtani was better.
A primer for you.
0.0 WAR = replacement level player (best available AAA player)
2.0 WAR = about MLB average (fluctuates slightly from year to year)
4.0 WAR = All Star level play
6.0 WAR = Superstar. The top 1% of players.
All viable candidates and I’d be happy with any… as long as Niebla is retained and/or promoted.
You like Niebla I take it. Honestly, not a close observer of the team so I’m not that familiar with him although I can see the success they have had.
I thought the Espositos were all about the hockey.
Phil and Tony were ages ago.
And their mother doesn’t call them “Mr. Esposito”.
As long as they get someone that will work on slug.
What a joke interviewing this guy
Mark, Melvin got to pick those at the top of his coaching staff and we saw how that worked out. Shildt didn’t get to pick his staff and we saw how that turned out. All of them were in the organization when he was named manager. I don’t think the new manager will have much say in who is on his staff, especially the top guys like Niebla.
I can’t help but root for the guy somehow. 🙂