3 candidates to be next Philadelphia Phillies manager
The Philadelphia Phillies will start a search for a new manager, and here are three potential candidates.
In what came off as a Friday afternoon news dump the likes of which the NFL likes to do, the Philadelphia Phillies fired manager Pete Mackanin. He will manage the final three games of the season, then transition into what amounts to a ceremonial front office role for next year and perhaps beyond.
In a press conference on Friday, Phillies general manager Matt Klentak pointed to a need for a “new voice in the dugout.” He also inherited Mackanin and surely wants to hire his own manager. Mackanin had a year tacked on to his contract back in May, but all that essentially did was not make him a lame duck manager this season.
The Phillies are technically the second, and probably the third, team that will be looking for a new manager this offseason. The way the team has played after the All-Star break this year (35-37 record), there’s an argument for the Phillies job being better than the opportunities that are coming in Detroit and Queens.
As what will at least be publicly professed to be a wide-ranging search starts, here are three candidates to be the next Phillies manager.
3. Doug Mientkiewicz
Mientkiewicz was recently let go after one season back as the manager of the Minnesota Twins’ High Single-A affiliate. He managed the Double-A team in that organization the previous two years after his first stint (2013-2014) with the Single-A Fort Myers Miracle.
Mientkiewicz was in the mix to replace Ron Gardenhire as the Twins manager before Paul Molitor was hired, but he was passed over and never seemed like a serious candidate. He was also critical of the way the organization dismissed him, as he was dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irma with spotty cell phone service.
Many of the young players the Twins are currently seeing make a difference were managed by Mientkiewicz as minor leaguers. How much his influence really mattered to elite level talents like Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano can be debated, but the Phillies could see Mientkiewicz as a perfect candidate to further cultivate their movement back to playoff contention.