WINTER MEETINGS (Orlando, Fla.) — If Major League Baseball’s latest hiring cycle demonstrated anything, it’s that teams are increasingly willing to break from tradition in search of the right voice to chart a new path forward.
Nine of the sport’s 30 managerial jobs were open after the 2025 season ended. The Rockies decided to keep Warren Schaeffer, while the other eight vacancies were filled by new talents — half of them were unorthodox hires.
In 2022, Kurt Suzuki finished his 16-year playing career as a catcher with the Angels while Craig Stammen wrapped up his 13-year career as a reliever with the Padres. Neither has coached professionally since then, yet both will be managing the last big-league team they played for when the 2026 MLB season begins.
Meanwhile, 33-year-old Blake Butera — the youngest MLB manager in more than 50 years — will lead a youthful Nationals club as Giants skipper Tony Vitello makes the unprecedented move from college coach to big-league manager without any prior MLB experience.
(Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
It all begs the question, especially as data-driven front offices become increasingly involved in the on-field product: What is the most important job of a big-league manager in the modern game?
“It always comes back to relationships,” incoming Rangers manager Skip Schumaker told me. “That’s what this job is, is building the relationships and getting the buy-in and the trust from your players and your coaching staff.”
Schumaker, who will take over for Bruce Bochy after serving as a senior adviser with the Rangers last year, has been one of baseball’s most highly-coveted managers since leaving Miami after the 2024 season. He carries with him the perspective of having led both a surprising Marlins team that made the playoffs in 2023 — a run that earned him National League Manager of the Year honors — and a club that fell back down to earth a year later at the start of a Marlins rebuild.
“You can lose the clubhouse quickly,” Schumaker said. “And they don’t want to hear any BS. They want to know the truth. I think if you sugarcoat anything, you’re done. So in this seat, it gets hot sometimes, but the last thing they want is anything sugarcoated. They’re big leaguers for a reason, and they want to know the truth, so you have to give it to them.
“But I also think … I’m an intense personality in general, but I think you have to be positive as much as you can throughout the season because they’re going to get hit on a lot of negative the whole year. So as intense as I can be, also as positive as I can be I think is always the goal.”
These are aspects of the job that Vitello, Stammen, Suzuki, Butera and Baltimore’s Craig Albernaz will have to navigate as big-league managers for the first time.
The only way to learn is through experience.
(Photo by Dustin Bradford/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Schaeffer found that out last year in Colorado when he inherited a Rockies team that had lost 33 of its first 40 games under Bud Black. The interim manager did his best to keep spirits up the rest of the way amid a 119-loss 2025 season, but he learned “innumerable” lessons that he’d like to take into 2026 after being given the full-time role by new head of baseball operations Paul DePodesta.
“I learned that I would love to have more conversations on a daily basis with players,” Schaeffer said. “I think that’s a big strength of mine. I need to utilize it more often, develop leaders behind closed doors.”
Almost universally, front-office executives and big-league skippers polled at the Winter Meetings agreed that the ability to communicate well was the most vital trait of a good manager in today’s game.
“Being a strong communicator, a great connector and the curiosity and feel to put guys in the best positions to succeed,” one high-ranking team executive explained.
In theory, while professional experience is beneficial, a coach at a major college program could possess many of the right qualities.
“Can you impact players in a positive way? I think that’s the most important role,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy, who spent decades as a college coach at Notre Dame and Arizona State, told me. “Is that leadership? I don’t know. Maybe. It can be a lonely job. It can be lonely in that, to truly try to do that — impact players and all that kind of stuff — you’re not always the most popular or you’re not always taking the safe way. Sometimes, there’s a little risk involved.”
In the Giants’ case, there’s a lot of risk involved.
Whatever happens with Vitello in San Francisco after he transformed the University of Tennessee into a national powerhouse, Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey will either be lauded or lambasted for his decision. Posey believes in the 47-year-old’s natural leadership qualities, motivational skills and ability to shape and build a culture.
“There’s an expectation that he’ll get the best from everybody he comes in contact with,” Posey said as he introduced his new manager.
(Photo by Suzanna Mitchell/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images)
As Vitello embarks on a journey no other manager has taken before — at the Winter Meetings, Vitello jokingly referred to himself as either a guinea pig or a sacrificial lamb, depending on how his tenure in San Francisco goes — he enters his new role with a respectable level of humility for a coach who just led his college program to six NCAA regional appearances, three College World Series appearances and the Tennessee’s first ever national championship.
He is wise enough to recognize that he does not know everything, which is why he values Murphy’s advice and looks forward to getting to know the Brewers manager better.
Vitello and Murphy do not have a personal relationship, but they had a mutual connection in Tennessee coach Frank Anderson, whose son, Brett, pitched for the Brewers in 2021 and 2022. Through the Anderson family, Murphy was able to relay some advice to Vitello about transitioning from the college game.
“You don’t want to give up too many ingredients or the secret sauce, but some of it is pretty obvious,” Vitello said. “When [Murphy] was at Arizona State or Notre Dame, it was competitiveness at an extremely excessive degree, to an excessive actually. That ought to carry over at any degree, you’d prefer to assume.”
BEHIND THE PLATE: Tony Vitello Is Setting Instance To ‘Marry’ MLB and School Baseball
Vitello nonetheless hadn’t really seen Murphy on the Winter Conferences till minutes after his media session ended, when he walked out of a ballroom on the Signia by Hilton in Orlando and simply occurred to run into the Brewers supervisor. Vitello approached cautiously, like a child that simply noticed his favourite participant. Quickly, the 2 struck up a prolonged dialog. Minutes into their discuss, Dusty Baker stopped by and joined them, as in the event that they had been all longtime mates.
“There is a excessive degree of respect for these individuals which can be within the recreation, however for me, perhaps as a result of I used to be round my dad and all these athletic groups, I feel it modifications while you’re in a constructing collectively as a bunch,” Vitello stated. “Like, we’re part of a crew. In an effort to be a great teammate, I do not assume you may see your self as above anyone; I feel it could be loopy to see your self as beneath anyone as nicely since you’d be dishonest your self and them.”
Solely time will inform how the experiment goes as Vitello transitions from a 56-game faculty dash to a 162-game big-league marathon and from main youngsters to managing the personalities and egos of rich adults.
(Photograph by Wesley Hitt/Getty Photos)
No matter occurs, the hirings of Vitello, Stammen and Suzuki weren’t one of the best signal for coaches on the decrease ranks of the minors with desires of working their means up the standard path. Additionally they weren’t an excellent signal for former skippers comparable to Brandon Hyde and David Ross, who’ve but to obtain one other alternative, or for former big-league superstars comparable to Albert Pujols, a preferred managerial candidate who in the end didn’t land a job.
With extra info than ever at their fingertips, it’s attainable that some entrance places of work would like to rent novice managers who gained’t query their affect or decision-making.
By a extra optimistic lens, maybe the newest spherical of hires had been simply an instance of MLB catching up.
It’s not as overseas to see a direct bounce from faculty to the professionals on the teaching ranks within the NFL (e.g. Jimmy Johnson) or NBA (e.g. Billy Donovan) as it’s in MLB, neither is it unusual to see a coach in his 30s thrive in different sports activities (e.g. Sean McVay, Joe Mazzulla), as Butera is now attempting to do in Washington beneath a brand new Nationals entrance workplace led by 35-year-old president of baseball operations Paul Toboni.
“You need to adapt,” Butera stated. “The sport’s shifting quicker than ever. The knowledge we’ve entry to now could be greater than it’s ever been. It’s simply going to proceed to change into extra. It’s not simply having info; you need to usher in coaches that need to perceive how one can interpret the knowledge and, two, perceive when to ship to gamers and what to ship to gamers.”
Within the NBA, J.J. Redick had no skilled teaching expertise earlier than he began teaching the Lakers, who believed in his basketball IQ and talent to attach and talk. The Lakers gained 50 video games in his first season, the third-best file within the Western Convention.
Two years in the past, the Cleveland Guardians took an analogous likelihood on supervisor Stephen Vogt for related causes and have reaped the rewards of their choice. Vogt, a former All-Star catcher who had no managerial expertise when the Guardians employed him, performed his final big-league season in 2022 earlier than spending the following 12 months because the Mariners bullpen and high quality management coach. In 2024, he changed future Corridor of Famer supervisor Terry Francona in Cleveland and went on to earn AL Supervisor of the 12 months honors in every of his first two seasons with the membership.
(Photograph by Nick Cammett/Getty Photos)
Vogt considers consistency to be an important a part of the job — an comprehensible notion for a supervisor who helped his crew overcome a 15.5-game deficit in 2025, the most important ever to win a division.
“You need to be the identical particular person each single day, whether or not issues are going nicely, issues are going poorly,” Vogt informed me. “You’ll be able to’t have dangerous days. You’ll be able to’t be in a foul temper. You present up on daily basis, select to be in a great temper and select to guide with a smile in your face. That consistency is an absolute should for a supervisor.”
Vogt’s success helped pave the best way for the newest crop of incoming managers. He believes the interval through which he got here up, as baseball was present process its analytics revolution, makes gamers from his period distinctly outfitted for the function within the supervisor’s chair.
“We had been raised in an old-school world, however then we performed via the transition,” Vogt stated. “So now I really feel like we’ve an excellent understanding of how one can apply info whereas not dropping sight of perhaps the intestine really feel.”
Clearly, the Angels and Padres shared an analogous perception with their hires. Vogt’s ultimate season as an enormous leaguer was the identical 12 months that Suzuki and Stammen wrapped up their taking part in careers.
In Anaheim, Suzuki is following an analogous trajectory to Vogt as a former longtime MLB catcher. Vogt’s recommendation to Suzuki: “Be your self,” Vogt stated. “It’s OK to not have any solutions. It’s OK to say, ‘I don’t know,’ or use the assets round you.”
In San Diego, Stammen’s hiring was extra atypical, not solely as a result of he was a pitcher but in addition as a result of he went from interviewing potential candidates for the job following Mike Shildt’s retirement to all of a sudden changing into the reply.
Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller thought Stammen was “tremendous real” and “comfy in his pores and skin,” traits that had been enticing as he tried to seek out the proper particular person to maintain the Padres’ window for rivalry open.
What does Stammen imagine is an important a part of the job?
“I feel the veteran managers in all probability have much more to say about it, however from my perspective, what I can deliver to the desk that’s invaluable is relatability, doing issues with integrity, belief, honesty,” Stammen stated. “I feel these management qualities go a great distance.”
The Rangers (Schumaker), Rockies (Schaeffer), Braves (Walt Weiss), Twins (Derek Shelton) and Orioles (Albernaz) all went a extra typical route than the Giants, Nationals, Angels and Padres with their managerial selections.
Albernaz, who will get his first MLB managing alternative this 12 months with the Orioles, labored his means up in a extra typical method than many others on this hiring cycle. He climbed the minor league ranks earlier than becoming a member of the Giants teaching workers after which spending the previous two seasons on Vogt’s workers in Cleveland, an expertise he considers one of the best he has had in baseball.
By these varied stops, he feels that he gained a grasp on an important a part of his new job.
“It’s individuals,” Albernaz informed me. “On the finish of the day, you’re a supervisor of individuals. That’s one thing that’s by no means going to vary on this recreation, that individuals nonetheless play. Entrance-office members don’t play. Coaches don’t play. The gamers play. And for a big-league supervisor, for anybody, even a coach, you must be a connector of individuals.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB author for FOX Sports activities. He beforehand lined the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved again to the West Coast in 2014. Observe him on X at @RowanKavner.
