{"id":361234,"date":"2025-11-07T03:04:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T03:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/361234\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T03:04:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T03:04:18","slug":"padres-hire-of-craig-stammen-is-anything-but-conventional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/361234\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres’ hire of Craig Stammen is anything but conventional"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six things to know about Craig Stammen as Padres manager<\/a>:<\/p>\n

First, this is a\u00a0comfort\u00a0hire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like an old shoe. Or your favorite pizza.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certain that Stammen, 41, clicked with Padres power brokers A.J. Preller, 48, and Manny Machado, 33, in his time as a Padres reliever and player development assistant.<\/p>\n

Other key Padres figures were colleagues, too. Such as\u00a0pitching coach Ruben Niebla, bench coach Brian Esposito, right-fielder Fernando Tatis Jr., and pitcher Joe Musgrove.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s no guessing here about Stammen\u2019s personality.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Preller is guessing about Stammen\u2019s ability to lead a team. There\u2019s no track record there.<\/p>\n

Second, this is a\u00a0bargain\u00a0hire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dave Roberts gets a reported $8.1 million to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n

Craig Counsell gets a reported $8 million from the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n

Bruce Bochy had an estimated $4.5 million annual salary with the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n

Mike Shildt\u2019s deal had $2 million in average value on the extension Preller gave him in November 2024.<\/p>\n

Stammen got a three-year contract. Figure it\u2019s shy of Shildt\u2019s $2 million, reflecting his lack of managerial experience.<\/p>\n

Even if it\u2019s $1.5 million in annual value, that\u2019s $9 million to $20 million in Padres savings over the life of the deal compared to upper-tier cost.<\/p>\n

\n

From 4 homers allowed to his place in Padres lore, a look at Craig Stammen through the years<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cStammen Dividend\u201d raises two questions.<\/p>\n

Can Preller turn $9 million to $20 million into good value on the field?<\/p>\n

And, will Stammen outperform his lower-tier salary?<\/p>\n

(I\u2019m assuming Shildt, as reported, indeed forfeited the $4 million due him after he stepped down for health reasons.)<\/p>\n

Third, this is a\u00a0trend-line\u00a0hire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stammen becomes the third unconventional managerial hire this offseason. That is, if there\u2019s still such a thing.<\/p>\n

Tony Vitello never worked in professional baseball before Buster Posey signed the University of Tennessee manager last week to guide the San Francisco Giants.<\/p>\n

Yet, Vitello wasn\u2019t a low-cost hire. His buyout with Tennessee was $3 million.<\/p>\n

At 33, incoming Washington Nationals manager Blake Butera is younger than many big league players. He\u00a0and pitcher Michael King were teammates at Boston College.<\/p>\n

Fourth, Stammen is a\u00a0play-to-your-strengths\u00a0hire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Run prevention and bullpen quality are often Padres strengths. Stammen outsmarted hitters. He was beloved for his competitiveness, poise and willingness to take the ball no matter what.<\/p>\n

Fifth, Stammen wasn\u2019t my grand-slam hypothetical hire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That would\u2019ve been Bochy, with Albert Pujols as the associate manager\/hitting coach.<\/p>\n

Preller likes Bochy. He twice went to his home in Franklin, Tenn., in his managerial search in 2021. Bob Melvin got that job, perhaps with a push from chairman Peter Seidler. Bochy, implied his late agent Tony Attanasio, didn\u2019t come close to taking that job. The Rangers hired Bochy the following year, and he led the team to the World Series title.<\/p>\n

\n

Padres notes: Ram\u00f3n Laureano returning, more silver for Manny Machado<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This week Bochy, 70, returned to the Giants as a special assistant to Posey. He didn\u2019t rule out a return to managing but said, \u201cI\u2019m content with what I\u2019m doing now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pujols interviewed for the Padres\u2019 managerial job.<\/p>\n

Sixth, for multiple reasons, this is a\u00a0mystery\u00a0hire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare for a former big league pitcher to become a manager. Examples include World Series-winning managers Tommy Lasorda and John Farrell.<\/p>\n

Mostly, though, it\u2019s the starting pitchers who become managers.<\/p>\n

And among the MLB managers who\u2019d never managed at any level, many could draw upon MLB-coaching experience.<\/p>\n

Dusty Baker, for example, was the Giants\u2019 hitting coach in the previous five seasons before he succeeded Roger Craig and led his first club to 103 wins.<\/p>\n

A classic \u201cbet on the person\u201d addition, Stammen becomes Preller\u2019s sixth hire into the job. Like Pat Murphy, Andy Green and Jayce Tingler, Stammen takes the job having never managed in the big leagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI assume Stammen is someone A.J. trusts and has a good relationship with,\u201d said an evaluator with a neutral club. \u201cNo judgment here. I hope it works out well.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t say I wasn\u2019t a little surprised,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go macro one more time.<\/p>\n

MLB team executives say it\u2019s very tricky to quantify and put a dollar value on managerial performance. \u201cThe noise and variance,\u201d one said Thursday, is considerable.<\/p>\n

Stammen hails from the central Ohio village of North Star. Can he adapt to a new occupation fast enough to become a\u00a0guiding light for a Padres team seeking a fifth playoff berth in seven years and the franchise\u2019s first World Series title?<\/p>\n

Or will his on-the-job education prove overly expensive?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six things to know about Craig Stammen as Padres manager: First, this is a\u00a0comfort\u00a0hire. Like an old shoe.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":361235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-361234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-padres","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115506201519007300","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}