Poll: How do you feel about Skip Schumaker as the new manager of the Miami Marlins?
The Miami Marlins have found their new manager.
Skip Schumaker is leaving the St. Louis Cardinals to replace Don Mattingly as manager of the Marlins, and Kim Ng and Co. are excited about the hire.
How about you?
Schumaker spent this season as the Cardinals’ bench coach after four years as the San Diego Padres’ first base, including two years there as the Padres’ associate manager. The 42-year-old also played 11 seasons in the Majors as a second baseman and outfielder, batting .278 and winning two World Series in St. Louis. He retired in 2016 and began his coaching career a year later in San Diego.
Miami locked in on Schumaker as one of its top targets early in the process — he was one of four candidates to interview with the Marlins multiple times — and the club officially hired him Tuesday.
As a coach, Schumaker helped the Cardinals win 93 games and the National League Central this year, and helped the Padres reach the 2020 MLB postseason as the NL’s top wild card, ending a 14-year playoff drought. He becomes the 14th full-time manager in franchise history. Mattingly was the manager for the last seven years before he and the club decided to mutually part ways upon the expiration of his contract.
Miami hasn’t been to the MLB postseason since 2020 and even then only qualified because the league expanded the field due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to 2020, the Marlins last made the playoffs in 2003, when they went on to win the 2003 World Series.
The other candidates to interview multiple times for this job were Houston Astros bench coach Joe Espada, Tampa Bay Rays bench coach Matt Quatraro and New York Yankees third base coach Luis Rojas, who was previously the New York Mets’ manager.
