I sit here writing this because the San Diego Padres, the team I have loved since I was eight years old, has once again done a stupid fucking thing.
I sit here listening to Bon Iver (pronounced “Bon Iver”), because it’s the only music that seems to echo the feelings I have inside about this stupid fucking thing the San Diego Padres, the team that I have loved since I just liked going to games for cotton candy, have done.
The San Diego Padres have hired a new manager, the sixth in the last ten years, Craig Stammen. Former average relief pitcher Craig Stammen.
Now, this has nothing to do with Craig Stammen the person. By all accounts he’s a good guy. I could go on about his professional accolades but that’s what the team’s social accounts are for. Not mine.
Mine is to ask JUST WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!
And, I ask this in two different emotional and rational ways:
1. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?! From a fan perspective this is ludicrously stupid. We’ve done this. We’ve hired the wildly inexperienced guy before – in fact – Stammen is now the MOST wildly inexperienced hire in Preller’s tenure. He’s never managed. Ever. Maybe he managed like a Little Caesars in his younger days or something, but he’s never been thee guy in the dugout before.
He’s younger than me, which I hate.
He’s a Roman Catholic, which worries me as someone who was also a Catholic.
He probably loves Bon Iver, which is problematic in its own right.
He probably thinks Weezer’s Teal Album rips, AND HE’S ANOTHER RANDOM WHITE GUY FILLING THE SPACE ON THE FUCKING BENCH WHERE THE MANAGER SITS!
We have a team full of latin superstars, and we had arguably one of the greatest latin players of all time applying for this managerial position, and instead of Pujols we once again hire someone’s white uncle. The disconnect here seems legitimately dangerous if it wasn’t so fascinating in its laziness.
How does the team allow this to happen? Would Papa Pete EVER agree to this? We’ve had so many lameduck white guys at the helm in San Diego that if they were all clean shaven you probably couldn’t tell them apart. Craig Stammen looks and sounds like a computer generated player in MLB the Show.
2. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?! From a structural standpoint this only makes sense in one singular way. Something I speculated on in my last post and then the Section 1904 guys stole and moved to their larger platform: is Manny the manager? Is he the real manager of this team and no one is actually going to admit it? Are they gearing him up to take more and more control until he retires from playing and officially shifts down the bench? Or are they setting him up to take more and more control so he eventually becomes the player/manager we all assume he already is?
This is the only way this makes sense from a structural standpoint because it doesn’t in any other logical way – EXCEPT ONE, which I’ll get to in a paragraph (JUST FUCKING WAIT JEEEEEEZ) but listen: we have all long suspected this is Manny’s team in one way or another. In my last post I laid it out pretty clearly. Most of the past managers for the Padres have said as much, and most free agents have alluded to not wanting to come here because of that alleged environment. But, Manny played with Stammen, so maybe – just maybe – Manny agreed to this hire as either “he’s gonna be a great leader for this team like he was on the field” or “He knows me and I know him and he’ll do whatever I say” or both. Like Vito Corleone tells Tom in The Godfather, “Why don’t you tell your Godfather what everyone seems to already know.”
If Manny is making the calls and making life terrible for every manager who steps foot in the dugout – then just let Manny be the manager. I can’t think of any Padres fan (myself included) who would be against that. Not only would it be fun to watch, it might work! And, if it doesn’t then he can just go back to playing and maybe – JUST MAYBE – leave the managers alone from then on.
So here’s the only other logical way this makes sense structurally: Preller creates himself another landing pad. ANOTHER scapegoat. Preller’s the guy who’s being shot at and grabs another person to shield them from the bullets. He couldn’t hire Pujols and then fire him in two years. Not a chance. Even if the team underperformed I guarantee Pujols would be fun and the players would love him and firing him would be a blatant mistake.
Now Preller gets another no-name, AI-generated manager to take the heat when this team fails. Cause it will. Darvish is gone for 2026, Michael King is on his way out, Cease and Saurez and Arraez are gone for the time being. This team has more questions than answers, and as I’ve discussed at length over the years AJ Preller can’t build an effective offseason roster if someone was holding a gun to his deflated basketball.
Hiring Stammen is all about protecting his ass once again – or – if he doesn’t sign an extension it’s his perfect final FUCK YOU to the Padres organization. Like he’s trying to prove they’ll fail without him at the top spot or something. I don’t know. NO ONE DOES CAUSE THIS HIRE MAKES ZERO SENSE!
AJ Preller had the opportunity to do something awesome here. He had the chance to embrace the party atmosphere that was wholeheartedly missing in 2025. The excitement that played out in 2024 was zapped clean this past season. Not saying that was Shildt’s fault, but when you have an Hall of Fame latin legend like Pujols in the dugout – someone who Fernando Tatis, Sr. might ACTUALLY let his son listen to – you assume he may have some ideas and experience to keep that swagger alive. The one thing Preller has proven time and time again is that team chemistry is the least important thing to him.
From an outside perspective, one that literally all of us have, this move is weird and as boring as the 2018 Padres uniforms.
Again, this isn’t bashing Craig Stammen. I’ve talked to players who loved the guy. He’s well-liked and respected, but I’ve heard that shit before about managers: Bud Black, Bob Melvin, other B names – they’re “good Baseball guys”. Cool. Fun. Really great.
I’m a “good beer guy”, but it doesn’t mean I should run a fucking brewery.
Preller had a chance to do something in the offseason and he shit the bed AGAIN. And, of course I could be wrong. This could all work out and Stammen could be awesome and I’ll be the asshole. And, I will gladly assume that moniker if it does in fact work. If this team gets the World Series during Stammen’s tenure I will print this post out and eat it. GLADLY. Prove me wrong.
To quote the Bon Iver song that’s playing right now:
“There’s a pull to the flow
My feet melt the snow
For the irony I’d rather know
‘Cause blinded
I was blindsided”
And those lyrics make as much sense to this post as this managerial hiring does.