Front Row Seat: Reactions to Padres hiring Craig Stammen to be their manager
It was certainly a surprise.
While you are reading this, I am currently in the airport waiting for my flight. I wrote this last night, assuming that I wouldn't want to be putting together a newsletter from Terminal 1, so it's going to be a little different than usual.
Darren Smith
Padres hire Craig Stammen as manager - San Diego Union-Tribune
The Padres’ choice to be their manager is outside the box but from inside the organization.
He is relatively unknown by many who follow the game but highly respected by many in the game.
In a decision that snuck up on virtually everyone around Major League Baseball, former Padres relief pitcher Craig Stammen was named the team’s next manager on Thursday.
Padres choose Craig Stammen as next manager in unexpected twist - The Athletic
Preller’s latest choice in a manager was far from unprecedented — the president of baseball operations had previously employed Andy Green and Jayce Tingler as first-time managers — but it still surprised many throughout the industry and more than a few members of the organization. According to team sources, Stammen did not initially put himself forward as a candidate and even helped the Padres interview others early in their search. The former reliever, who spent half of his 12 seasons with San Diego and the past two years as a special assistant to baseball operations and the major-league coaching staff, does not have any formal coaching or managerial experience.
Padres hire Craig Stammen to 3-year deal as new manager - ESPN
Texas Rangers special assistant Nick Hundley, Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla and future Hall of Fame first baseman Albert Pujols were also considered finalists in the search, though others could have been involved too. In the end, though, it went to Stammen, who is now the only former pitcher to serve as a current manager in Major League Baseball.
Padres hire former reliever Craig Stammen as next manager - Yahoo Sports
At the very least, there's one thing about Stammen that immediately makes him an outlier among his managerial peers: He’s a pitcher. Before he was fired by the Rockies earlier this year, Bud Black was the only former pitcher to hold a major-league managerial position, with the vast majority of current skippers having been catchers or infielders, with a handful of outfielders mixed in. So far this offseason, another round of former catchers (Kurt Suzuki, Craig Albernaz, Derek Shelton) and infielders (Skip Schumaker, Blake Butera, Tony Vitello, Walt Weiss) have been hired, with Stammen emerging as the lone pitcher to hold a managerial post among the 29 positions currently filled. How that informs his perspective as the new leader in the Padres clubhouse — and how he fills out the rest of his coaching staff — will be interesting to monitor.
Tom Krasovic: Padres’ hire of Craig Stammen is anything but conventional - San Diego Union-Tribune
A classic “bet on the person” addition, Stammen becomes Preller’s sixth hire into the job. Like Pat Murphy, Andy Green and Jayce Tingler, Stammen takes the job having never managed in the big leagues.
“I assume Stammen is someone A.J. trusts and has a good relationship with,” said an evaluator with a neutral club. “No judgment here. I hope it works out well.
“Can’t say I wasn’t a little surprised,” he added.
Padres hire former reliever Craig Stammen as next manager - MLB.com
The 2026 season will be Stammen’s 10th in the Padres' organization. He spent 13 seasons as a pitcher in the big leagues, including the last six as a reliever with the Padres from 2017-22. Stammen was the de facto leader of the bullpen for several years in San Diego before he retired during the 2023 season, when it became evident he would not return from a torn capsule in his right shoulder.
Stammen remained in the organization, and he was promptly hired as an assistant on the big league coaching staff and in the baseball operations department. In that role, he served in a number of different capacities. He worked alongside the big league club and made himself available to Minor Leaguers. He sat in with the front office during trade discussions. In short, Stammen has done a bit of everything over the past two seasons.
San Diego Padres name Craig Stammen as manager in shocking hire - USA Today
In a dizzying managerial merry-go-around in which a college coach was hired with no professional experience in San Francisco, and a 33-year-old was hired in Washington, the San Diego Padres’ managerial choice Thursday was the most shocking of all.
The Padres hired former 13-year-veteran reliever Craig Stammen to be their manager after retiring less than three years ago, and never having coached or managed at any level.
Stammen, 41, who received a three-year contract, was selected ahead of future Hall of Fame manager Bruce Bochy, who had expressed interest, future Hall of Fame player Albert Pujols who interviewed for 9 ½ hours, Chicago Cubs bench coach Ryan Flanerty, former Padres catcher and Texas Rangers special assistant Nick Hundley and Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla.
From 4 homers allowed to his place in Padres lore, a look at Craig Stammen through the years - San Diego Union-Tribune
Craig Stammen was not happy as he stood at his locker on June 9, 2019.
He’d not only given up four home runs. He’d given up a home run to four straight batters to turn a save situation into what must be the low point of a 13-year career on the mound.
The conversation that followed with a handful of reporters that gathered around his locker was necessary — at least as necessary as any conversation after a regular-season game of baseball — so Stammen met the queries head on.
It was the opposite of pulling teeth. He lost a game in spectacular fashion and did not begrudge any questions that followed, some answers more obvious than the others.
“This is what it feels like to give up a home run,” Stammen, hired Thursday as the next Padres manager, said then. “You want to dig a hole, crawl behind the mound and go in that hole and never return. Every time you give up a home run. So to give up four in a row, times that by four.
“It doesn’t feel good.”
Stammen, of course, did not bury himself in a hole. He spoke about sequences and predictability, the prospect of potentially tipping pitches and the need to get back on the mound and figure it out.
Alright, that's going to do it for today's edition of Front Row Seat. I'll be back at some point next week, and every weekday after that, to try and make it easier for you to follow the news.
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