Making sense of MLB’s newest class of managers

The first surprise arrived on Oct. 18, with news that the San Francisco Giants were closing in on celebrated Tennessee Volunteers coach Tony Vitello as their new manager. Another came on Halloween, the day Blake Butera became the Washington Nationals’ choice despite being just 33 years old. But the biggest stunner of all, according to several coaches and executives queried by ESPN, followed six days later, when former relief pitcher Craig Stammen — barely two years into retirement and hardly even mentioned as a potential manager previously — landed baseball’s top on-field job with the San Diego Padres.

In Stammen, Vitello and Kurt Suzuki, another recent retiree who signed a one-year contract to lead the Los Angeles Angels last month, Major League Baseball suddenly had three managers without any professional coaching experience. Five managers in total — including Craig Albernaz, the highly regarded former bench coach hired by the Baltimore Orioles — will be rookies next year. And Warren Schaeffer, who had the interim tag removed by the Colorado Rockies on Monday, is a 40-year-old who managed his first 122 major league games last season.

It was two decades ago that major league front offices underwent a revolution around advanced analytics, prompting an influx of general managers from Ivy League colleges and quantitative backgrounds. Data-driven coaches followed. Now, after one of the most fascinating hiring cycles in recent memory, the industry might be going through something of a shift at manager, with four of this offseason’s nine openings going to unconventional candidates.

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The reasons, merits and overall significance vary greatly depending on who you talk to, but nobody can deny the uniqueness of what took place over these past five weeks. Consider …

Vitello, 47, became the first person to go directly from college coach to major league manager.

The last manager younger than Butera was Frank Quilici of the 1972 Minnesota Twins, more than 50 years ago.

Of the 850 people who have managed at least one game in the big leagues, only 124 — fewer than 15% — were ex-pitchers. Stammen will soon become the 11th person to do so after making at least 500 pitching appearances. Nine of the other 10 threw their last pitch before the 1950s, according to ESPN Research.

“I do think it’s interesting how it’s been a little theme this offseason,” new Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni said. “I think about other sports and some of these quote-unquote unconventional hires — I don’t know if they’ve been normalized, but they’re probably a little more prevalent than they have been in baseball, depending on how you define conventional or unconventional.”

To mixed results, the NBA has long been experimenting with head coaches from the college ranks (John Calipari, Rick Pitino, Billy Donovan, Brad Stevens), has seen a recent influx of others emerging from Europe (David Blatt, Mike D’Antoni, Tuomas Iisalo) and has had several former players lead teams without prior coaching experience (Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Steve Kerr, JJ Redick). In the NFL, Sean McVay landed a head coaching job at 30 years old, John Harbaugh and Dan Campbell became head coaches without prior offensive or defensive coordinator experience and several thrived after coming over from college, most notably Jimmy Johnson and Pete Carroll.

Baseball following suit, some believe, is a natural progression of advanced analytics playing such a major role in lineup construction and bullpen deployment. Some of the coaches and executives ESPN spoke with saw that as a positive, noting that rookie managers have more support than ever, while others condemned modern executives for not placing enough value on the nuances of in-game decision-making. But it’s a development that has nonetheless allowed teams to focus more on other characteristics, like leadership, culture-building and how their philosophies align with the front office’s.

“These days, if you can find traits that ultimately define a successful manager, that’s enough to want to hire a guy,” an agent who represents some current managers and coaches said.

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Vitello, who built a powerhouse baseball program at Tennessee, has been described as intense, but also charismatic and magnetic. Suzuki, who carved out a 16-year major league career largely through his ability to work with pitchers, has been lauded for his intelligence and feel. Butera, a two-time minor league manager of the year, has drawn praise for his ability to connect with people in all areas of an organization. Stammen, beloved as a player in San Diego, always resonated with teammates because, as Padres GM A.J. Preller said, “He’s super genuine.”

Though some view their emergence as progress for a sport historically slow to adapt, others see it as further evidence that modern front offices are going to extremes — and, in some cases, looking to maximize their influence.

“Some clubs may perceive that hiring a more experienced, higher-paid manager could diminish their influence and control,” a retired former All-Star said, while other sources lamented how recent managers like David Ross, Brandon Hyde and Scott Servais received scant attention as candidates this offseason despite playing a big part in elevating their prior franchises.

Joe Maddon, a three-time Manager of the Year who last led a team in 2022, recently lent voice to that frustration. Two weeks ago, in an interview with San Francisco radio station KNBR, Maddon called the Vitello hire “insulting” because, as he said, “it appears as though you don’t have to have any kind of experience on a professional level to do this job anymore.”

A former manager and current coach saw those comments as a sign that no matter how much the sport tries to evolve, pushback will always be prevalent.

“No matter how much baseball has grown, and it’s certainly moving forward, you still have that kind of old-school thought,” the coach said, “whereas if this was NFL football, or if it was NBA basketball — college coaches make that jump all the time. But in baseball, it’s viewed very weirdly. Our system is ass-backwards in a way.”

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The identity of the people making these hires might have something to do with it. Toboni is young himself, entrusted to lead the Nationals’ baseball operations department at just 35 years old. Angels GM Perry Minasian also navigated an unconventional path, starting as a bat boy and clubhouse attendant. So did Buster Posey, the former star catcher who was part of the Giants’ ownership group before being named their president of baseball operations. And then there’s Preller, who has made a habit of making unorthodox moves in San Diego.

He cautioned that this process could be cyclical.

“Teams are always creative, and they’re always looking for talent,” Preller said. “So maybe that led this past year to seeing some first-time managers, but I don’t think that necessarily means the next three years you won’t look up and there won’t be three or four openings and they all go to managers with experience.”

Several teams indeed went the more conventional route this offseason. The Twins hired Derek Shelton, who’s fresh off managing the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Atlanta Braves (bench coach Walt Weiss), Texas Rangers (senior adviser Skip Schumaker) and Rockies (Schaeffer) all promoted from within, selecting managers with prior experience in the role. The Orioles went with Albernaz, who, despite being new to that job, managed in the minor leagues and spent these past six seasons on a major league coaching staff.

Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias went into the process seeking a candidate who has managed in the big leagues — then Albernaz changed his mind.

“I think managerial experience is important,” Elias said, “but it’s not everything when you’re making that hire. We were willing to kind of go to the talent that we wanted, despite the fact that he hadn’t been a major league manager.”