ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — The Texas Rangers hired Skip Schumaker as their manager Friday night, agreeing on a four-year contract with the former NL Manager of the Year, who had been in their organization for the past year.
Schumaker’s deal was announced after Chris Young, the president of baseball operations, acknowledged earlier in the day that the Rangers were focused on an internal candidate in their search to replace Bruce Bochy. Schumaker had been in a senior advisory role with the team since last November.
The 45-year-old Schumaker was the 2023 NL Manager of the Year when Miami went 84-78 and made the fourth postseason appearance in club history. That was the same year Texas, with Bochy in his debut there, won its only World Series championship.
“While I attained a good understanding of the organization through my front office role this past season, the conversations with Chris Young, (general manager) Ross Fenstermaker, and others this week have only intensified my interest in this opportunity,” Schumaker said in a statement. “I can’t wait to begin the work for 2026.”
The Rangers and the 70-year-old Bochy, a four-time World Series champion who was baseball’s winningest active manager, agreed Monday to end his managerial stint. That was the day after Texas finished 81-81 for its second non-winning record since its championship. Bochy was at the end of his three-year contract.
The Marlins slipped to 62-100 in 2024 after changes in the front office and with a roster decimated by trades and injuries. Schumaker and the team agreed that he wouldn’t return for this season.
Texas then hired Schumaker for the advisory position, a move viewed by many as making him the heir apparent to Bochy.
“We are thrilled to announce this promotion and have Skip leading this club in the dugout,” Young said in a statement. “Over his past year as a senior advisor to our baseball operations group, Skip has proven to be driven, passionate and thorough in everything he does. He has a winning spirit and energy, and we are fortunate that someone so highly regarded in the industry has agreed to become our manager.”
The Rangers became the first of eight major league teams to fill a managerial vacancy. Young wouldn’t say earlier in the day if any other teams had requested permission to speak with Shumaker.
Before going to Miami, Schumaker was on San Diego’s staff from 2018-21 and then was the bench coach for St. Louis, where he played for the Cardinals during their 2011 World Series win over Texas. He played 11 big league seasons with St. Louis (2005-12), the Los Angeles Dodgers (2013) and Cincinnati (2014-15).
Schumaker will take over a Rangers team that for the first time in franchise history this year led the majors in ERA (3.47), and will bring back starting pitchers Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter. Texas also set a single-season MLB record with its .99112 fielding percentage, bettering the 2013 Baltimore Orioles’ mark of .99104.
But the Rangers ranked 26th in the majors with a .234 batting average and 22nd with 684 runs scored.
“It was a little bit bittersweet. It was painful to really see some of the things that we did so well, and then also there was optimism to know that we did so many things so well and came up short,” Young said earlier Friday. “But there’s a lot to look forward to moving forward, and I think there’s a lot of optimism I have that this is going to get corrected quickly. I mean, we’re not talking about a 20-game jump here to make the playoffs.”
Fenstermaker said while Schumaker lives on the West Coast, he had been very involved with the team in his advisory role.
“He’d spend time with us and many different folks in the front office, add his perspective, his wisdom. He was around and available a lot,” Fenstermaker said. “We probably talked to him every few days, if not daily, throughout the course of the year and bounce ideas off him and get his perspective.”
Bochy has been offered an advisory role in the Rangers’ front office. He also could be in line for such a position with the San Francisco Giants, though he isn’t a candidate for the managerial opening of the team he led to World Series titles in 2010, ’12 and ’14.
With 2,252 wins, Bochy is sixth among major league managers, with the five ahead of him all in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was 249-237 with the Rangers.
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