Padres name Craig Stammen manager

Craig Stammen (Cathy T, Wikimedia Commons)

For the second day in a row, the San Diego Padres have made Major League Baseball headlines. One day after announcing that Yu Darvish would miss the entire 2025 MLB season with ulnar collateral ligament surgery, the Padres announced that they have named Craig Stammen of North Star, Ohio as their new manager on Thursday.

The hiring of Stammen is a surprise to many. That is because this is Stammen’s first job as a professional baseball coach at any level. He had previously managed amateur baseball in Versailles, Ohio, the last three years.

Stammen was a pitcher for 13 seasons in the Major Leagues. He was initially with the Washington Nationals for seven seasons from 2009 to 2015, and then with the Padres for six seasons from 2017 to 2022.

Used mostly as a reliever, Stammen pitched 562 games. He had a record of 55 wins and 44 losses with an earned run average of 3.66. In 885 innings pitched, Stammen had one complete game, six saves, 108 holds, and 743 strikeouts. He gave up 858 hits, 360 earned runs, 95 home runs and 236 walks, to go with a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 1.24.

Stammen’s complete game came in his rookie season with the Nationals. He threw 107 pitches, and only gave up two earned runs in nine innings in a 13-2 Nationals romp over the Houston Astros on July 11, 2009.

Stammen takes over from Mike Shildt of Charlotte, North Carolina. Shildt left the Padres on October 13. There are questions at this time if he retired, resigned or was fired. What we do seem to know was that there were tensions inside the Padres locker room this past season with Shildt as manager.  There were high expectations in San Diego this past season, but were eliminated by the Chicago Cubs in the National League Wildcard Series.