Washington Nationals: 5 managers who should replace Dusty Baker

4. Ron Gardenhire

If big-league managing experience is what they want, the Washington Nationals will likely take a good long look at Ron Gardenhire.

Gardenhire returned to baseball in 2017 as the bench coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks. A bench coach only deserves so much credit, but the Diamondbacks certainly took a major step forward with Gardenhire in the fold in 2017. It is not difficult to see him as an important piece to their puzzle and it has gotten the veteran manager in the conversation for the current managerial openings.

Before he was a bench coach for Arizona, Gardenhire was the manager of the Minnesota Twins. Gardenhire was in Minnesota for a lengthy period, taking over as the Twins’ manager in 2002 and holding onto the job until getting fired in 2014. Gardenhire led the Twins to many successful seasons but really struggled towards the end. His career record as a manager is 1068-1039 but that was severely hurt by young and rebuilding Twins teams in his later years.

When it comes to experience, you will be hard-pressed to find someone with more than Gardenhire. That being said, Gardenhire’s pedigree is similar to Baker’s. First of all, he’s never really had any postseason success. His career 6-21 postseason record speaks for itself.

Also, like Baker, Gardenhire is considered to be an “old-school” manager. He has not adapted advanced statistics and analytics to his game and has been hesitant to change. If the Nationals are looking for a new approach, he may not be the guy. But if they’re just looking for a change of personality from someone with the requisite experience, Gardenhire could be a good fit.