Here we go again. Here goes another manager, again.
Make no mistake: Bob Melvin is gone, Bay Area-bound, after the Padres granted an interview with the Giants. None of that happens or becomes public without it being signed, sealed and damn near delivered.
How can a manager return after that? Slow dancing with someone in the same division? It’s like telling your wife you’re going on a date with the next-door neighbor, but might be back. The locks would be changed before you hit the driveway.
The move makes sense in fundamental ways for Melvin, who returns to the area where he managed the A’s. He reunites with Fahran Zaidi, the GM who used to be an executive as he slugged it out amid the empty seats at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
There’s trust and a healthy history.
What does it say, however, about the state of things at Petco Park that a manager would walk away from $250 million worth of payroll, coming reductions, pitching and Juan Soto pending? Why go from a franchise in win-now mode while still under contract to the roster mop-up mess in San Francisco?
Unless Melvin didn’t simply walk away.
Either way, Padres GM A.J. Preller is off the hook for what could have been an uncomfortably forced breakup just weeks after saying, “Bob is our manager and is going to be our manager going forward.” Going forward, apparently meaning the short amount of time it took for the Giants to hatch a palatable Plan B.
Heck, the Padres might be able to save the $4 million or so they owe Melvin in the process. They could leverage the division discomfort with other perceived wound-salving compensation as well.
But please, please, please, not another first-year manager. No offense to Ryan Flaherty, who is smart and well liked by most accounts. The biggest strike he faces, fairly or unfairly, would be the perception that he represents Jayce Tingler 2.0.
San Diego, at this point, is not a place for training wheels. This isn’t a big-league internship. This is not a get-your-feet-wet first stop, not with the massive push that produced a NLCS run in 2022 and franchise-defining contracts that will age quickly.
Results remain on a shot clock. This cannot have the feel of a patient rebuild or reload.
Some will argue Flaherty could be a Manny Machado whisperer. The two were teammates with the Orioles. That might not be a good thing. This isn’t a buddy system. This is about getting the most out of the stars and team to win a championship, in short order. Think of it like loaning money to family and friends. It might sound like a good idea at first, but relationships can sour quickly.
Flaherty, by all accounts, will get a chance to manage someday. A completely fresh slate will be miles more fair and would serve him better.
Padres adviser Mike Shildt, though, is the type of hire that makes immediate sense. He’s managed the Cardinals, a place rife with win-now expectations. The team made the playoffs every season he was in charge. He worked with established veterans Yadier Molina, Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado and Adam Wainwright.
Shildt knows the Padres organization deeply and broadly. He would arrive with the built-in respect of doing the job at a front-line franchise, not a far-flung baseball outpost, while winning along the way.
Preller, as always, is capable of uncorking curveballs. This hardly feels like the time, though, to be the thought contrarian or overreach. Hubris needs to hit the showers. Dugout stability and a dugout stabilizer, after a parade of coaches and managers have come and gone, should rank at the top of the priority list.
If Flaherty ends up as the choice, he deserves a chance. But man, he would face choppy water from the get-go after the Padres cycled through first timers Andy Green and Tingler. The public-relations climb would be Mount Whitney large, given the been-there, done-that feel of things.
Shildt sidesteps all of that.
The only question that matters, of course: Who gives this core group — Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Xander Bogaerts, Joe Musgove and Yu Darvish for long-term starters — the best chance to win?
For one, I believe Melvin still could have been that guy in 2023. He’s a proven winner who is the same person that led the team to the NLCS in 2022. The troublesome nature of things with Preller, however, might have felt like too much for all to overcome.
It’s true that it would have felt like a distraction any time the Padres hit a win-loss rough patch.
So, here comes another manager. Again.
