Six days after firing David Bell, the Reds’ search for a new skipper might not take full flight until the season is over. The club has “been doing a lot of due diligence this week with a lot of different people,” president of baseball operations Nick Krall told the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer and other reporters, though “we haven’t set up anything formal with anybody.”
As per Wittenmyer, the names already linked to the early stages of the search include now former Marlins manager Skip Schumaker, former Cubs manager David Ross, and current Reds interim manager and longtime bench coach Freddie Benavides. It would appear as though the Reds are looking primarily at candidates from outside the organization, as Wittenmyer writes that “Benavides is considered the lone in-house candidate.” Neither Schumaker or Ross are exactly strangers to Cincinnati either, as both played for the Reds during their on-field careers.
Within minutes of the announcement of Bell’s firing, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that Schumaker was “on the Reds’ radar” as the potential next skipper. Though Schumaker is technically still under contract with Miami, it has been widely known that the manager and the team were parting ways after this season, so presumably the Marlins gave permission for whatever contact has taken place between the Reds and Schumaker’s camp.
In a sign of just how quickly the ground can shift underneath a manager’s feet, at this time one year ago both Schumaker and Ross seemed to have plenty of job security with their teams. The Marlins made a surprise run at an NL wild card berth during Schumaker’s first season as manager, and Ross’ Cubs emerged from a two-year rebuild to finish with an 83-79 record.
The Cubs’ progress under Ross wasn’t enough for upper management, however, and Craig Counsell’s presence on the market led the team to stun the baseball world by swooping in to hire Counsell for a five-year, $40MM contract. Ross found himself suddenly looking for work, and while he was linked to the Padres’ managerial vacancy and the Yankees’ bench coach job, “Uncle Rossy” instead spent the 2024 season on the sidelines. In regards to the New York job, Ross was reportedly looking to get back into managing rather than coaching if he was to quickly pivot to another role after his unexpectedly late entry onto the open market.
Ross played with seven different teams at the MLB level during his 15-year playing career, including a stint with the Reds from 2006-08. After capturing a World Series ring as member of the curse-breaking 2016 Cubs, Ross retired from playing and transitioned into a special assistant’s position within the front office. Ross was then hired as manager following the 2019 season, and delivered a 262-284 record over four seasons in Chicago’s dugout. The Cubs reached the playoffs in 2020 but Theo Epstein’s departure as president of baseball operations then led to a two-year step backwards for the organization, before the 2023 team posted a winning record.
Schumaker has already faced a lot of tumult over his two seasons as a big league manager. Hired for Miami’s top job after a five-year stretch on the Padres’ and Cardinals coaching staff, Schumaker’s work in leading the Marlins to the playoffs led him to the 2023 NL Manager of the Year award. However, on the heels of that successful debut year, owner Bruce Sherman wanted the Marlins to build a better minor league foundation, and looked to install a new president of baseball operations to oversee general manager Kim Ng. Rather than accept a demotion, Ng declined her end of a mutual option for the 2024 season, and Miami then went into rebuild mode under new PBO Peter Bendix.
This left Schumaker in something of a limbo state, and when the Marlins voided their 2025 club option on his contract back in April, it was pretty apparent that 2024 was going to be Schumaker’s last year in South Beach. Given how little he had to work with, Schumaker hasn’t been assigned any blame for the Marlins’ woeful 60-100 record this year, and he’ll head into the open market as perhaps the top managerial candidate available. The White Sox are also known to have interest in Schumaker’s services, but as Wittenmyer observes, managing a Reds team with a lot of young breakout talent might well have more appeal to Schumaker than overseeing what is likely to be a pretty lengthy rebuild on the South Side of Chicago.
However, it perhaps shouldn’t be ignored that the Reds waited to give Bell a new deal until he was only about two months away from the expiration from his previous contract. That might’ve been the first hint that the Reds’ ownership and front office was only willing to give Bell so much leeway in continuing as the club’s skipper, and the disappointing nature of the 2024 season sealed Bell’s fate.