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Latest On Padres’ Managerial Situation

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The possibility of a managerial change in San Diego rose back to the forefront yesterday, as the Padres granted permission for the Giants to speak with Bob Melvin. The three-time Manager of the Year, who’s familiar with both the Bay Area and San Francisco president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi from his long stint with the A’s, now seems a strong candidate to leave San Diego for a division rival.

Melvin is under contract with the Padres for next season. As a result, the Friars could require compensation to approve him taking the job elsewhere. Dennis Lin of the Athletic writes that the Padres may not demand more than a marginal return to allow the veteran skipper to depart, however.

That’s a reflection of the apparently strained relationship between Melvin and baseball operations leader A.J. Preller. Multiple late-season reports indicated there was a strong divide between the two. San Diego ownership clearly doesn’t believe the situation had become untenable. After a meeting between Preller, Melvin and chairman Peter Seidler, the organization announced a few weeks ago that Melvin would return. However, the Giants’ interest could afford San Diego a fresh start while clearing Melvin’s $4MM salary. Had he been fired, the Padres would’ve remained on the hook for the money.

If Melvin heads to San Francisco, the Padres have a few internal candidates to take his place. Bench coach Ryan Flaherty and senior advisor Mike Shildt seem the likeliest options. In a piece at The Athletic, Britt Ghiroli and Lin write that the 37-year-old Flaherty is highly regarded within the organization and seemingly has a strong relationship with Preller. As a result, they suggest the former Orioles infielder appears the top internal option.

By contrast, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune casts Shildt as the in-house potential favorite. The 55-year-old has prior MLB managerial experience, having led the Cardinals from midway through 2018 until he was dismissed after the ’21 season due to what St. Louis called “philosophical differences” with the front office. (Flaherty’s only managerial experience consisted of a two-week interim stint in 2022 while Melvin was recovering from surgery.) Shildt has spent the last two years working with Preller’s front office and has been open about his hope for another managerial position.

Both The Athletic and the Union-Tribune suggest San Diego could also consider external opportunities. It’s too soon to say with certainty that Melvin is even departing, much less the position will come down to Flaherty or Shildt. Given the Giants’ stated goal of finalizing their hire before the start of free agency, there figures to be a resolution within the relatively near future.

Padres’ Third Base Coach Matt Williams Taking Leave Of Absence After Colon Cancer Diagnosis

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Padres third base coach Matt Williams will step away from the team for an undetermined amount of time following tomorrow’s Opening Day festivities. Skipper Bob Melvin informed reporters (including Alden González of ESPN) on Wednesday that Williams was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. He’ll undergo surgery to address the issue on Friday.

Williams said he was first made aware of the issue a few weeks ago after a standard physical turned up a low red blood cell count. Fortunately, the 57-year-old indicated he’s feeling well physically. “I don’t have any symptoms, I don’t have any issues,” Williams told reporters. “At this point it’s important now to get it out of there. That’s the plan for Friday, and we’ll see how it goes from there. They’ll test, and they’ll do all the pathology and all of that at that point. But the initial scans were positive in that on the initial CT scan they didn’t see any spread anywhere else. That’s a good thing. We’ll see where it goes from there.”

A five-time All-Star during his playing days, Williams has spent the better part of the last decade in the coaching ranks. He managed for the Nationals for two seasons in 2014-15, securing the NL’s Manager of the Year award in his first campaign. Williams later spent time on the A’s coaching staff and followed Melvin to San Diego over the 2021-22 offseason. He’s headed into his second season with the Friars.

Former Cardinals’ manager and current senior advisor Mike Shildt will take over third base coaching duties on an interim basis. MLBTR sends our best wishes to Williams and his family on his recovery.

Padres Promote Ryan Christenson To Associate Manager

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The Padres announced their coaching staff for the 2023 season this afternoon. There are a few shakeups for Bob Melvin’s second season leading the San Diego dugout.

Ryan Christenson has been given the title of associate manager. The 48-year-old joined Melvin in making the jump from the A’s to the Padres last offseason. Christenson had been Melvin’s bench coach in Oakland from 2018-21 and took on that same role for his first season in San Diego. He now earns a bump in title to associate manager, though his position as Melvin’s top lieutenant seems unchanged.

Filling the role of bench coach is Ryan Flaherty, who’s going into year four on the San Diego staff. He also gets the title of offensive coordinator, essentially taking on the hitting coach duties vacated when Michael Brdar was poached by the Tigers at the start of the offseason. San Diego will go without anyone assuming the traditional “hitting coach” title.

The 36-year-old Flaherty has spent the past two seasons as a quality control coach. He drew interest from the Mets in their bench coach search last offseason, but the Friars denied New York’s interview request. One year later, the former Orioles infielder gets both that title and the lead hitting responsibilities in San Diego.

He’ll be joined on staff by assistant hitting coaches Scott Coolbaugh and Oscar Bernard. The 56-year-old Coolbaugh joins the Friars after two years as the lead hitting instructor with the Tigers. He’d also previously served as hitting coach in Baltimore and Texas and an assistant role with the White Sox. He brings plenty of coaching experience to help Flaherty in his first crack as offensive coordinator.

Bernard, meanwhile, gets promoted to the MLB staff after seven years as San Diego’s minor league hitting coordinator. The 39-year-old spent some time as a player and instructor in the Cubs’ minor league system before joining the Friars in 2016. It’s the first big league staff job for the Dominican Republic native. Also joining the group is catching coach Brian Esposito. The 43-year-old spent last season managing the Friars’ Low-A affiliate in Fort Wayne.

The rest are holdovers from last season. Ruben Niebla is back for a second year as pitching coach, pairing with bullpen coach Ben Fritz. Matt Williams and David Macias will coach the bases and defense — Williams the infield, Macias the outfield — with Peter Summerville and Herberto Andrade as coaching assistants. Former big league managers Bryan Price and Mike Shildt will reassume the advisory roles they manned in 2022.

Mike Shildt Interested In Future Managerial Opportunities

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Mike Shildt has worked in a hybrid coaching/player development job for the Padres this season, monitoring the organization’s farm system while occasionally joining the MLB dugout when other coaches are unavailable. It’s a less visible role than his previous position as Cardinals manager, a job he held for three-plus seasons before being fired after the 2021 campaign.

After some time away from the managerial office, Shildt expressed a desire to return to that role in a recent chat with Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I’ve won my whole life. I’m more convinced now that I’m ready to manage again and win,” the 53-year-old told Hummel. Shildt conceded he’s “not sure what the market looks like” but added he feels he “more than (deserves) the opportunity to do it.”

As Shildt alluded, the Cardinals had no small amount of success under his watch. St. Louis went 252-199 (55.9% winning percentage) during his tenure, making the postseason in two of his three full seasons. He was named the National League’s Manager of the Year in 2019, and his dismissal registered as a shock after the Cards had reeled off a 17-game win streak down the stretch to land a Wild Card spot. Nevertheless, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak pointed to “philosophical differences” between Shildt and the front office as the reason for going in another direction.

Within days of the manager’s dismissal, reports emerged that Shildt had bristled at the front office’s attempts to more rigorously incorporate analytics into in-game decisions. Katie Woo of the Athletic wrote at the time that the front office’s quiet 2021 trade deadline also “played a role in the growing disconnect” between the front office and the skipper.

In his recent conversation with Hummel, Shildt largely passed on the opportunity to revisit the end of his Cardinals tenure. He conceded the firing is still painful but said he’s “getting beyond it and ready to get back into the fray with the right opportunity.” He declined to elaborate further on the reported disconnect between himself and organizational higher-ups, stating only that “a combination of things happened. … The past is the past. It’s time to move on.”

Shildt will presumably remain in his role with the Friars for at least the rest of this season, but his name figures to be on the radar during next winter’s managerial hunts. He’d reportedly been set to interview in San Diego’s own managerial search last offseason, but Shildt tells Hummel he declined that opportunity.

The Friars eventually poached Bob Melvin from the A’s, a hiring with which they’re surely thrilled after opening the season 41-24. The Cardinals are no doubt happy with how things played out themselves. St. Louis promoted bench coach Oli Marmol and is off to a 37-28 start. The teams hold small leads in their respective divisions entering play Friday.

Padres Hire Mike Shildt For Player Development Role

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The Padres announced their player development staff today, with a notable new name joining the fold in former Cardinals manager Mike Shildt.  While reports last month indicated that Shildt was going to take a job in the Commissioner’s Office, Jeff Jones of The Belleville News-Democrat tweets that Shildt will actually be working in both positions, as the league gave Shildt permission to also consult with San Diego.

This isn’t the first link between Shildt and the Padres, as San Diego interviewed Shildt for their managerial vacancy back in October, in the aftermath of Shildt’s surprising firing from the Cards dugout.  While the Padres ultimately opted for Bob Melvin as their new manager, clearly they liked what they heard from Shildt, enough to work this rather unique arrangement with the league office.

The 53-year-old Shildt will now be working for just the second MLB organization of his long career, as he had previously spent almost two full decades with the Cardinals.  The Padres job represents something of a full-circle moment for Shildt, who began as a scout with both the league and with St. Louis, before moving on to became a minor league coach and then manager in the Cards farm system.  Joining the big league coaching staff prior to the 2017 season, Shildt worked as a quality control coach, third base coach, and bench coach before being promoted to interim manager when Mike Matheny was fired in July 2018.

From there, the Cardinals basically just kept winning under Shildt, as the team reached the postseason every year from 2019-21 and played to a 252-199 record under their new skipper.  However, it was far from smooth sailing within the organization, as some discord arose between Shildt and the front office when the Cardinals were struggling earlier in the season.  While St. Louis ripped off a 17-game win streak in September to book a trip to the postseason, it wasn’t enough to save Shildt’s job, as president of baseball operations John Mozeliak cited “philosophical differences” as the somewhat vague reasoning for Shildt’s firing.

Now, Shildt will take on a wide range of new responsibilities, between his duties with both the league and the Padres.  It may seem odd to speculate about what a next step might entail for someone who already has two jobs, but Shildt has seemingly positioned himself well for any number of different future roles, whether with MLB, the Padres, or another team interested in his services as either a manager, coach, or player development executive.

Mike Shildt Expected To Take Job In Commissioner’s Office

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After being fired by the Cardinals in October, former manager Mike Shildt is now headed for a job in the Commissioner’s Office, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale.  Shildt is expected to take a role in the On-Field Operations department, working under senior VP Michael Hill.

The Padres interviewed Shildt about their managerial vacancy, though rather than a quick return to the dugout, Shildt will now leave the field entirely.  It will mark the first time since 2003 that Shildt has taken a job in baseball outside of the Cardinals organization.

A lengthy career as a scout, minor league coach and manager, and then a season and a half on the St. Louis coaching staff, Shildt rose to the interim manager’s position after Mike Matheny was let go in July 2018.  The Cardinals went 41-28 after Shildt took over as skipper, starting the team’s trend of late-season surges during Shildt’s tenure.  Except for that 2018 season, those late runs resulted in postseason appearances — the Cards won the NL Central in 2019 and earned wild card berths in each of the last two seasons, though their only postseason triumph in that stretch was a five-game win over the Braves in the 2019 NLDS.

This season, St. Louis enjoyed a team-record 17-game winning streak in September, but lost the wild card game to the Dodgers in heartbreaking fashion, as Chris Taylor hit a ninth-inning walkoff homer.  That winning streak only temporarily saved Shildt from being replaced, as various issues (or, as president of baseball operations John Mozeliak put it, “philosophical differences“) arose between Shildt and the front office and ultimately led Mozeliak to decide that a new manager was necessary.  Bench coach Oliver Marmol was eventually hired as Shildt’s replacement.

Shildt is only 53 years old, so there is plenty of time for a return to the dugout if he chooses to pursue other managerial or coaching opportunities in the future.  In the meantime, he will pitch in with Hill’s portfolio, which includes on-field disciplinary issues and umpiring at both the MLB and minor league levels.

Padres To Interview Mike Shildt This Weekend

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10:15pm: Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that there’s another former manager on the list: Brad Ausmus. Ausmus managed the Tigers from 2014 to 2017 and the Angels in 2019.

7:39pm: The Padres are going to interview Mike Shildt this weekend for their open managerial position, according to Dennis Lin of The Athletic. It was recently reported that the Padres were considering Shildt but were still looking into what happened to conclude his tenure with the St. Louis Cardinals. It would appear that they didn’t find anything distressing enough to cross him off of their list of candidates, based on the fact that the interview seems to be going ahead.

It was just over a week ago that Shildt was surprisingly fired by the Cardinals, on the heels of a 90-win season that ended when they lost the wild card game to the Dodgers. Since then, he’s been repeatedly connected to the Padres position that’s been vacant since Jayce Tingler was fired the previous week.

For his part, Shildt is trying his best to stay tight-lipped about things. On Tuesday, he appeared on SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio and, when asked about whether he’d been contacted about open positions, said, “There’s been some back channeling.  I don’t want to say anything.  You know, I’m really unclear how to handle it.  I’ve never really been fired from a manager job and been on the open market so I’m not sure how this exactly works, guys.  There’s been some informal conversations but nothing beyond that. Like I said, the good news is the phone has rung, I think there’s going to be opportunities to explore which is exciting.”

Shildt won’t be the only one considered for the job, of course, and Lin reports that there is a belief in the industry that Mike Scioscia “will emerge as a candidate.” Scioscia’s entire MLB managerial history has been with one club thus far, as he managed the Angels from 2000 to 2018. That tenure included a 2002 World Series victory, as well as Manager of the Year honors in both 2002 and 2009. He recently returned to bench boss duties with the United States men’s national team for the Tokyo Olympics, where the club took home silver medals.

Lin also reports that Bruce Bochy is not getting strong interest from his former club. Bochy managed the Friars from 1995 to 2006, before moving up to San Francisco and managing the Giants from 2007 to 2019, a run that included three World Series championships.

Lin adds that Ron Washington and Buck Showalter are “not believed” to be in consideration for the position. It had been reported in recent weeks that Washington was in contention, though that may no longer be the case, if it ever was. Atlanta’s third base coach, Washington can’t interview for any jobs while the club is still alive in the postseason. Showalter, for his part, said he has not been contacted about a managerial job, though that was over a week go.

Regardless of who gets the job, it appears that the decision may come down quickly, as Lin also quotes Padres’ president of baseball operations A.J. Preller as saying that it’s “realistic” to think the hiring process will be done by the general managers’ meetings, which begin in just over two weeks, on November 8th.

Padres Expected To Interview Mike Shildt; Not Planning To Interview Ron Washington

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10:16PM: The Padres do intend to speak with Shildt “are still investigating exactly why he was let go in St. Louis,” Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune tweets.  Acee also adds that San Diego isn’t planning to interview Braves third base coach Ron Washington, who was rumored to be on the Padres’ radar last week.

9:59PM: Mike Shildt might not be out of a job for long, as The Athletic’s Dennis Lin and Brittany Ghiroli (Twitter link) report that the Padres are looking to interview Shildt for their managerial vacancy.  After being fired by the Cardinals just three days ago, Shildt enters a market thin on dugout openings, as the Mets and Padres are currently the only other big league clubs looking for a new manager.

However, Shildt does fit the mold of what the Padres have reportedly been focusing on, as all of the names linked to the search thus far have been experienced Major League managers.  While team chairman Peter Seidler said the Padres wouldn’t necessarily only be looking at former managers, this seems to be the initial direction in what might still be the early days of their search.

Keeping an open mind about candidates is always a good idea since a team never knows what new candidates might suddenly emerge…including Shildt, who seemed as safe as any manager in baseball after leading the Cardinals to a 90-win season.  Since taking over from Mike Matheny in July 2018, Shildt posted a 252-199 record in his tenure in St. Louis, taking the Cards to the postseason in each of the last three years.  After reaching the NLCS in 2019, the Cardinals haven’t made it beyond the initial playoff round, falling to the Dodgers in the wild card game and losing to (ironically) the Padres in the expanded 2020 postseason’s 2020 wild card series.

Details still aren’t exactly clear on the “philosophical differences” (in the words of St. Louis president of baseball operations John Mozeliak) that led to Shildt’s dismissal, though it isn’t surprising that the Padres would want to speak with a manager with Shildt’s recent track record.  Since all of Shildt’s experience in pro baseball has come with the Cardinals, he doesn’t have any past connection with Padres president of baseball ops A.J. Preller, thought that also might not be a prerequisite for any hiring.  Considering how Preller’s close friendship with former manager Jayce Tingler may have played a role in San Diego’s reported clubhouse tension over the season’s final weeks, it could benefit the Padres to hire a manager perceived by the players as having some distance from the front office.

Details On The Cardinals’ Firing Of Mike Shildt

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The Cardinals surprised the baseball world when they parted ways with manager Mike Shildt on Thursday, and speculation has only grown about the situation in the subsequent days.  President of baseball operations John Mozeliak cited “philosophical differences” as the reason for the firing, declining to discuss specifics and instead telling reporters (including The Athletic’s Katie Woo) that “where we felt the team was going, we were struggling to get on the same page.  We just decided internally that it would just be best to separate now and then take a fresh look as we enter the new season.”

According to Woo, tensions began to grow between Mozeliak and Shildt around midseason, when the Cardinals were still hanging around the NL Central race but struggling to stay above .500.  Other factors contributing to the rift may have included the Cardinals’ lack of major moves at the trade deadline, the front office’s desire to incorporate more analytics into the team’s day-to-day operations, and “growing controversy between Shildt and his coaching staff over his leadership tactics and communication.”

Shildt will release his first public statement about his firing tomorrow, though he did send a text message to Woo discussing some of these reported issues.  There is “no merit” to the idea of discord with the coaches, Shildt said, though as for the other factors cited, “There is merit (to those factors) but not the entire picture.”

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch adds another possible factor to the list, perhaps based around how “The Cardinal Way” has long been a backbone of the organization’s practices.  “Internally, there had been concern about the absence and ongoing leak of Cardinals-rooted presences,” Goold writes, with some internal dismay over what one source described as “losing tradition” to other clubs.

This stance does seem curious in regards to a managerial change, however, considering that Shildt was himself a longstanding member of the organization.  Shildt was first hired by the Cards as a scout in 2004, and he worked his way up the ladder with various minor league managerial and coaching roles before joining the big league coaching staff in 2017, and then becoming interim manager partway through the 2018 season.

As shocking as Thursday’s firing seemed, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney tweeted that rival officials had heard around the middle of August that Shildt’s job could be in jeopardy.  St. Louis was still only one game over .500 (69-68) as late as September 7, and though at that point, the Cardinals caught fire.  A team-record 17-game winning streak fueled a 21-4 run over the remainder of the regular season, earning the Cards a berth in the NL wild card game.  Late-season surges were a common theme in all of Shildt’s three-plus seasons as manager, beginning when the Cardinals went 41-28 after his hiring in 2018.

Coaches and veteran Cardinals players declined comment to Goold about the Shildt firing, though Yadier Molina did speak to reporters in Puerto Rico yesterday, saying the news “took me by surprise…We had very good communication.  We went to the playoffs three times in four years.  Maybe there was some problem between him and the management.  I can’t give you reasons, but from what I know inside the clubhouse, there wasn’t any kind of problem.”

Cardinals Dismiss Manager Mike Shildt

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The Cardinals have fired manager Mike Shildt, as first reported by Rob Rains of StLSportsPage (Twitter link). At a press conference announcing the news, St. Louis president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told reporters (including Jeff Passan of ESPN) the organization made the decision based on “philosophical differences” between Shildt and the front office about the direction of the franchise.

It’s a shocking development, since there was no prior indication Shildt’s job was in jeopardy. Indeed, the broader expectation as recently as last week had been that Shildt and the team would try to work out a contract extension, with his current deal running only through the 2022 season. Instead, the Cardinals will go in another direction in spite of the club’s strong run of play during Shildt’s tenure.

Today’s announcement concludes Shildt’s nearly two decades in the Cardinal organization. The 53-year-old began his career as a scout and minor league coach in the St. Louis system in the early 2000’s, steadily working his way up the organizational ladder. By 2017, he’d earned a spot on the big league coaching staff, and he took over as the major league manager on an interim basis in July 2018 when the club fired Mike Matheny. The team removed the interim tag a month later.

St. Louis won the NL Central and advanced to the NLCS in 2019, Shildt’s first full season at the helm. They finished in second place and lost in the Wild Card round during last year’s shortened season. This year, the Cardinals hovered right around .500 for the first few months before rattling off a miraculous 17-game win streak in September to coast to a Wild Card spot. St. Louis lost to the Dodgers in last week’s Wild Card game and ultimately won just one playoff series during Shildt’s tenure, but the club advanced to the playoffs all three years in which he was at the helm.

While there’s little to quibble with from a results perspective, the front office clearly determined a new voice was needed behind the scenes. While announcing the news, Mozeliak noted that the Cardinals believe they have “quality internal candidates” who could be options to step into the manager’s office, although he declined additional comment when asked whether the team planned to stay internal or look outside the organization for Shildt’s replacement (via Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post). Mozeliak added that he hoped the rest of the coaching staff would return in 2022, although that’s yet to be determined.

Given the Cardinals’ success under Shildt, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him land another coaching or managerial position elsewhere in the near future. He was named the National League’s manager of the year in 2019 and his teams posted a 252-199 record (55.9% winning percentage) over the past three-plus seasons.

The Cardinals become the third team looking for a new manager this offseason. The Padres fired Jayce Tingler a few days after the end of the regular season, while the Mets announced they would not pick up their 2022 option on skipper Luis Rojas.

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