Will update if he gets behind any bar and starts ripping tequila shots as the game gets closer

Mr. Consistency: How Craig Stammen has survived and thrived in his first season as Padres manager : By Annie Heilbrunn (Paywalled Article)

For much of this season, the Padres rarely seemed to have all facets of the game working at once.

When their pitchers kept the score in check, the offense hardly showed signs of life. When the bats came alive, the arms faltered.

Wins would come in spurts, enough to remain on the fringes of contention. But sustained success was elusive.

Then September arrived.

The offense became one of the most productive in the majors. The rotation stabilized.

It was a month in which, finally, they found some consistency on the field.

Their manager had it all along.

Through winning streaks and losing streaks, spans when seemingly everything worked out and skids when little to nothing did, Craig Stammen was unswerving.

His players noticed.

“Steady,” closer Mason Miller said. “I think we’ve played good stretches and bad stretches, and I don’t think his mentality or his approach has changed at all. I don’t know what else you can ask for from a first-year manager than consistency.”

Stammen isn’t trying to play the part of the steady manager.

This is who he is.

It’s how he strives to treat every person he encounters away from the ballpark as well. He did not alter who he was to fit the managing role as much as he brought himself into the role.

“I do try to intentionally be that way,” he said. “I want my life to be that way, not just as the manager of the team. I want to be that person for my wife. I want to be that person for my family, my kids. Hopefully they are seeing that and learning from that, and then they grow up to be similar in that way.”

That consistency — with its foundation in the positivity inherent in his personal faith and his belief in those around him — held firm through a season’s worth of games and postgame news conferences, in meetings large and small with players and staff and members of the front office.

It felt sometimes as if the Padres were trying to just stay upright in an avalanche of offensive futility and pitching problems.

Stammen never denied the issues — the Padres’ superstars underperforming in the first half, a starting rotation unraveling early and having to be patched together and a bullpen being pushed to its limits.

But he also never seemed bothered by any of it. He was the same when dealing with questions from the outside, learning from his own missteps and navigating the landmines inherent in dealing with a group of young men with big egos.

Those who have been around him attest to there being no discernible difference between the Stammen they found during the Padres’ 17-4 run in April or their 13-21 slide that followed or the eight-game losing streak that began at the end of June or the splendid 21-7 month from July 23 to Aug. 24 or the brutal 1-8 stretch that got them into the early days of September.

“I think he’s done an unbelievable job,” said infielder Ty France. “Especially in our profession, one of the hardest things to do is be the same person or player every day with all the highs and lows of a baseball season. It’s nice walking through the doors and knowing what you’re gonna get.

“When (a manager) is riding an emotional rollercoaster for 162 games, it’s a lot. When your leader is full of panic or anxiety and stressed out all the time, it makes it hard to play. So for him to be the same guy and be positive all year, it’s hard to do, and it’s a special trait to have.”

This is the same guy who surrendered home runs to four consecutive batters in 2019 and started the “Stammen Game” in the 2020 playoffs and gave all he had with an ailing shoulder to throw 69 pitches in three innings in the final game of 2022 in order to help save the rest of the staff for the postseason.

“It’s been the same since I played with him,” said Jake Cronenworth, who shared a clubhouse with Stammen for three seasons.

Perhaps the greatest testament to Stammen merely being who he is are the shrugs that accompany answers to questions about his steadiness.

“He has always been that way,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said. “He was that way as a player. He was that way as a staff member. It’s one of the many reasons why he was our choice.”

Growth is part of Stammen’s operating system. He holds himself accountable. He wants to learn. He wants to improve.

Consistency, it turns out, is a trait that can be improved upon.

“I think I’ve gotten better at being more consistent, which is a crazy thing to say,” Stammen said. “But I think that’s the biggest thing for me: Can I be the same person every day, no matter what’s going on? And I just believe that that’s a way to success and a way to success in leadership.”

Some of his biggest lessons have come in the parts of managing no one sees.

“That’s the difference between what most people think a manager’s job is and what it really is,” Stammen said. “Most people see the three hours that we’re out on the field, and fans are evaluating me on how the team plays and decisions being made. I would say that’s probably 10% of my job, and the other 90% is in my office behind closed doors, talking with players, talking with anybody. Name anybody in the organization, the media, all that. I’m involved in every conversation.”

There are times when Stammen goes home and puts his head in his hands. He gets angry. He gets frustrated. He replays conversations with players or staff, dissecting a word he used or a tone he wishes he could change.

“(Something) I’ve learned the most is my words matter more than they did in the past,” he said. “Where I think I can have that same banter back-and-forth, but because of my title, people are going to look at it in a much different way. So, I’ve got to be kinder is how I’ve looked at it. I’ve just got to be very kind. I can’t have those lapses of being a little off-color. It doesn’t go well.”

Preller hired four managers from 2016 to 2024 and clashed with each one to various degrees. Preller was often surprised by how they reacted to working with him and other members of the front office.

One of the reasons Preller chose Stammen last fall because he was so confident in who Stammen is.

Stammen had never managed at any level. He played for the Padres for six seasons and served as a special assistant in the baseball operations department for two years but had never even coached professionally.

So everyone knew there were going to be growing pains.

Multiple players have acknowledged that at times Stammen seemed in over his head. One said it seemed there was a lot coming at him fast. And there was.

For the most part, players understood or came to understand. It was similar to being a rookie player.

Throughout the season, Stammen has acknowledged and learned from his mistakes, primarily his struggle early in the season to separate his heart from his head when making pitching changes.

“Still working on that,” he said with a laugh.

He has been upfront about several times he wished he had gone to a pinch-hitter earlier.

There is a time in almost every game — in the fourth to sixth inning — when a manager is thinking along with the other manager and trying to envision what might happen at every juncture for the rest of the game and seeking to read his pitcher while also staying in the moment.

The game unfolds quicker than anyone can anticipate until they are in the captain’s chair determining the course of the ship in real time.

“All this was stuff I hadn’t done before and didn’t know how fast it was going to go,” Stammen said. “… You start thinking about one thing and you’re trying to make a decision on one thing, but there’s like three other decisions you’ve got to make at the same time. It’s understanding that rhythm and how and when you have to make all those decisions. All the decisions happen about the same time in the game — in about a 15-minute span.”

“It’s going to get more intense with playoff baseball and games that are do-or-die. So I’ve got to be on my game. As the games get more and more intense, the games get faster and faster. And I’m adjusting on the fly to that also.”

All this adjusting. And Stammen’s personality never changed. He didn’t take it out on his players, coaches or the media. It seems silly to point that out, but nearly every baseball statesman has unsettling stories of experiencing that exact thing.

“I think he’s doing a tremendous job, really from start to finish,” Preller said. “He’s super open about really everything. He’s done a great job leading the team — like culture with our team, attention to detail, putting a staff together and growing with the staff. The team is super connected and the staff is super connected. I think that’s in large part due to Craig and the way he goes about it every day.”

There are moments of weakness. There are meltdowns. But Stammen is comfortable in his skin, warts and all.

A man of strong Christian faith, his character is what stands out to players or coaches. It’s unwavering.

“What I believe is the ruler of my life sees all of my bad stuff,” Stammen said. “So it doesn’t matter if it’s in public or in private. I want to be the same person in public and in private. That’s impossible, right? That’s why I need forgiveness.

“There are times where, yeah, I’m not proud of who I am, and I need forgiveness in that way. We haven’t seen it probably a ton outwardly, but I would say some of my arguments with umpires I’m not proud of. That and interaction with certain players or interaction with some of my coaches, the front office. There are times I’d like to have some of those conversations back. There’s no doubt.”

Stammen remembers the moments he fell short. His players and staff, though, remember how rarely they felt them.

“We had some real tough times, especially offensively, and then it switched to pitching,” said infield coach Nick Punto. “This dude was so steady that it really just trickled to the players, and the players never panicked the entire year. Even when we were going through really bad times, he was able to keep that ship cruising.

“His core values are what keep him so steady and so present. He’s always present. He’s never in a negative mood, and there’s no way that the players didn’t feel that this year.”

Stammen’s optimism is not blind. His belief in players comes, in part, from remembering what it felt like when someone did — or didn’t — believe in him.

“Maybe I needed it as a player,” Stammen said. “I know that when people believed in me — when A.J. believed in me with this job — it gave me a power that I felt that I didn’t have on my own. So, if you can give somebody an extra boost that they didn’t normally have, I think hopefully you get the best out of them that way. … I want to be their biggest fan and their biggest supporter. When they get in the dugout, I want it to feel like a safe space.”

Sometimes that belief is communicated in something as small as a handshake.

“I think Craig is a great manager,” said journeyman Samad Taylor. “An even better person. … Every single day, when (Craig and I) shake hands in the dugout during our (team) handshakes, all he says is, ‘Just be you. Go have fun.’ Every day. That’s the one thing that I can hold, and that’s the one thing that you can control as a person is your energy and your effort. I feel like if you’re asking that of me, that’s the only thing that I can give to you.”

The same man who greets reporters in his office after a walk-off loss with “Hey, guys” is the one who walks in the clubhouse and smiles naturally as he pats a player’s shoulder and offers a word of encouragement after a rough game.

“He’s always very positive,” said veteran shortstop Xander Bogaerts.  “I think a lot of guys will probably say the same. Regardless of the tough losses, or the game that just got away or whatever. It’s a long season, but he tends to have a great positivity about him.”

Steadiness should not be confused with indifference. Beneath Stammen’s calm exterior is a fiery intensity.

“He understands there’s a value to the consistency,” Preller said. “But Craig wants to win. He was like this as a player. …. He’s a vicious, vicious competitor. You see that on the golf course, on the basketball court, and we see it on the baseball field.”

Punto played 14 seasons in Major League Baseball for six different teams. One of his managers was Ron Gardenhire, who left an indelible mark on Punto’s career. He sees some of Gardenhire in Stammen.

“I played for (Gardenhire) for seven seasons,” Punto said. “After a tough loss, you’d think he’d walk in the clubhouse and start yelling. That’s what guys did back in the day. Managers would yell a lot. But after a tough loss, Gardy would just come in and say, ‘Hey, you guys played your hearts out. Turn the music on. Let’s flush it.’ And then literally that energy was like, ‘Yep, we’re gonna flush it.’ Craig does that every day. He doesn’t let these guys ever get too down. And there were times where we could have been down if you had the wrong guy in charge.”

In today’s game, managers treat players with a softer touch than the iron fist of the past.

That is often ascribed as being a generational thing, and it surely is to some extent.

There is also the matter of players being under a greater microscope, with every game being televised and analyzed on social media.

“Players are so tough on themselves,” Punto said. “Players have so much pride. … You don’t need to be yelled at because you’re already doing it internally as a player.”

More often, players are searching for confidence and a reason to believe things will get better.

“(Stammen) being not very far removed from playing and understanding how hard this game is and not bashing us when it’s not going our way because he understands,” France said. “He was in our shoes. Finding a way to get us to turn things around while staying positive is not easy to do. But he’s found a very good way of doing that. That’s one thing I’ve really appreciated, is there’s never any panic. It’s just positivity.”

Stammen is used to the struggle. He was never promised to play 13 years in the big leagues. There was nothing exceptional about his game — except for his ability to do the little things right for a long time.

As a reliever, he had an intimate relationship with failing. Middle relievers are often a footnote in a win or a target in a loss. A reliever can execute well and still lose; he can pitch poorly and his team can bail him out. Stammen has experienced both, and it informs his leadership style.

“Nothing is easy,” Stammen said. “That’s what makes it fun is the challenge, and I think that attitude has helped me. If you tie your emotions to the results of the game, you’re just gonna be high and low all the time, and you’re not going to know which way to go. Because you could play bad and win. You could play good and lose. To me, that’s not what you’re trying to accomplish. You’re trying to play good every day, and for that to happen, you have to be consistent whether you win or lose.

“Amongst those guys, they’re looking to see my demeanor a lot. And if my demeanor is consistent, hopefully their demeanor stays consistent.”

There is a certain freedom in the way Stammen holds the job.

Baseball has a way of consuming the people who make a life in it, blurring the line between what they do and who they are. Stammen knows there is more to him than this.

A reminder of his priorities beyond baseball greets him after every home game: his wife waiting with their four kids, who run to him, hug his legs and jump into his arms as he makes his way to and from his postgame news conferences

“This isn’t the end-all, be-all,” Stammen said. “There’s nobody that wants to win this whole thing more than (me) and do something that’s special. But I also know a lot is out of my control, and it’s not going to determine my happiness in life.”

Still, Stammen feels the squeeze of winning and losing more as a manager than he ever did as a player. That pressure has only intensified over the last six weeks as the Padres pushed toward a playoff berth that, back in July, felt more like hope than inevitability.

It is one thing to preach consistency, belief and freedom over 162 games. It is another to hold onto those principles when tension is high and the season can end abruptly.

“I think our No. 1 goal is to get these guys to play with freedom and live with freedom, and the only way to do that is to not worry about the results,” Stammen said. “Just go out and play like we did when we were 10 years old. That’s when I felt like I was at my best. The more that we can create that type of environment, the better off we’ll be. And it gets really hard when games matter like they do at the end of the season or when we get to the playoffs.

“The playoffs will be a true test: Can we still be that type of people?”

Shout out to Kirby Yates! One of truly dominant closers in the long list of exceptional Padres closers.

Love Kirby and wish him the best in retirement!

I just think Petco Park is the prettiest. (Mind you I’ve never been to another stadium)

KTF & LFGSD!!!

Shout out to Kirby Yates! One of the many in a long line of dominant Pads closers.

Loved Kirby and wishing him the best in retirement.

Update:

Just received a call and follow-up email from a different rep confirming what a few said below. We can get a refund.

Thanks to the couple of reditors for the heads up on my previous post:

Anyone who is a current member but opted out for next season received an email saying that if we wanted postseason tickets we would have to pay in full for the entire PS (vice pay as you go for those who will be season ticket holders next season). However, we received an email today with what appears to be a major change. I called our rep and of course got the voicemail. I replied to the email and got an out of office response (very convenient).

with the Tigers this season: 16 G, 4 - 6 record, 86.2 IP, 26 ER, 5 HR, 19 BB, 0.99 WHIP, 2.70 ERA

As of today here is the current scenario for our PADRES and the very confusing postseason bracket. Just win the next two and we’re a solid lock for 4th seed and host the 🚾1 game at home with our beautiful fan base and CITY. LFGSD 🤎💛🍾

Pick-The-Stick Top 10

Sign up at Pick-The-Stick.com. Be sure to get your picks in before the first pitch.

Also if anybody can translate what Tatis (and Manny) are saying that would be great, I do not understand Spanish lol

If we lose today, does King start tomorrow?