The stunning retirement of San Diego Padres manager Mike Shildt was especially shocking for Padres fans, and it’s sending some pretty serious shock waves across the league, too. The basic question is simple: Why would a seemingly excellent manager coming off a 90-win season suddenly retire from a lucrative job given the success Shildt was having?
There are several narratives that could answer this question, but Shildt tried to control his own story during a phone interview with Dennis Lin of The Athletic. He cited deteriorating health and job stress as the issues that convinced him to walk away, but another question is whether GM A.J. Preller did some of the “convincing.” That seems especially possible given that Schildt seems to be repeating the same experience he had as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals when he was fired for “philosophical differences” amid rumors of internal strife.
“Those are narratives I can’t control,” Shildt said during the interview. “You know, people are going to say whatever they want. There’s always going to be some kind of speculation. I’m just tired and want to go home, dude. I’m at super peace with it.”
Another question is why Shildt walked away from the job rather than negotiate a deal in which he was allowed to collect the money from the last year of his contract, which Lin had at at least $2 million, after being “fired.” This kind of resolution is common in baseball, but Shildt said he’s happy to head home to his beach house in North Carolina, and that he has no plays to seek another managing job.
“Never say never,” Shildt said. “But I have no desire to be in that big chair anytime soon. I’m going to enjoy a quality of life that I haven’t been enjoying my entire life.”
The Padres manager mentioned specific health issues like hair loss, chest pains, poor sleep, and even death threats based on the pervasive presence of sports gambling. The problem with this explanation is that some of these issues are faced on a daily basis by many big league managers, even when their clubs are winning..
The wild card in all this, baseball pun intended, is Preller. He’s not quite trigger-happy when it comes to firing managers, but he does seem to have a 2-4 year window of opportunity with his hires.
That window just closed for Shildt, who was hired in 2023, and you have to wonder how much the Padres' recent loss to the Chicago Cubs in the wild card round played into Preller’s call. Shildt decided to start veteran pitcher Yu Darvish in the elimination game, and that decision turned out to be disastrous. It also looks especially suspect given that the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs both led off with openers in the deciding game of their division series matchup.
Preller is schedule to meet the media today via Zoom, and we’ll probably get the usual platitudes about Shildt's need to move on and his health issues, rather than a deeper dive that would answer these questions more thoroughly. The tell will be who steps in to replace Schildt, especially if Preller goes back in time and hires a younger guy whose approach is more rooted in analytics, and another key indicator would be if that "never say never" comment turns out to be a quick return for Mike Schildt to another big-chair job.