Carlos Hernandez (Padres)

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.