Padres' chaotic 2015 season resurfaces in Dave Roberts-Pat Murphy 2026 NLCS matchup

Dave Roberts managed one game for the San Diego Padres. It was on June 15, 2015, after the team fired Bud Black. The Padres lost that day, and Pat Murphy took over the next day. He and the Padres went 42-54 the rest of the season and the Padres made the choice to look elsewhere. 

Here we are, 11 years later, and they’re the opposing managers in the National League Championship Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers. Murphy’s Brewers knocked out the Padres in four games, and Roberts is chasing a third straight title and fourth in seven years with the Dodgers. It’s a fun bit of trivia until the sting sets in.

Dave Roberts, Pat Murphy and the Padres' revolving dugout door

A.J. Preller’s first full year as the general manager came in 2015, and he spent the winter before it building a roster that he thought could win right away. That team acquired Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Wil Myers, James Shields, and Craig Kimbrel and looked like he had built a potential monster. They started 32-33, which cost Black his job and led to many men on the top step of the dugout.

Roberts managed a game, but he and Mark Kotsay, two future big league managers, were passed over for Murphy, from AAA El Paso. He built his resume in college at Notre Dame and Arizona State. Preller hoped it would be a change of pace. But it obviously wasn’t, as the losing continued, and the Padres finished the season 18 games behind the Dodgers. Murphy was out before the offseason even started.

Roberts left for Los Angeles while Murphy went to Milwaukee to work as Craig Counsell’s bench coach. Roberts is obviously still in Los Angeles, and Murphy took over for Counsell after eight years sitting as his top lieutenant. All Roberts has is three championships and a boatload of wins, while Murphy has won three NL Central titles and is the reigning back-to-back NL Manager of the Year. The Brewers won more games this year than at any point in their history.

There are no hard feelings for Murphy. He spoke at Petco Park in the NLDS and went out of his way to praise Preller.

"I respect A.J.; I really respect him," Murphy said. "I respect how, through all the people that have questioned his ways and doing things, he's maintained it and continues to fill the ballpark in San Diego and continues to make it one of the best baseball environments there is. So I respect him. And I wouldn't have retained me then either, you know what I mean? I wasn't ready to be the major league manager he needed."

That’s both gracious and probably honest. At that time, he was a man in his mid-50s with no big league coaching experience who was thrust into a clubhouse of veterans who didn’t know him, in the middle of a season, and very little, if any, runway. Preller calls Murphy one of the real talents in the game.

The problem isn’t so much that the Padres let both managers go, but what happened after. 

Including interim managers, Craig Stammen is the eighth manager for the Padres since Black was fired. Since Murphy, he’s the sixth. Andy Green lasted until 2019. Rod Barajas finished that season. Jayce Tingler got two years. Bob Melvin managed for two years before leaving for San Francisco. Mike Schildt stepped away after 2025 with time on his deal. In that time, the Dodgers have had one manager, and the Brewers are on their second after he was the bench coach there for years.

Neither Roberts nor Murphy was a finished product in 2015. Both became elite because their organizations allowed them the grace to grow on the job. Milwaukee kept Murphy in the building for nearly a decade before they handed him the keys to the moderately priced sedan. The Dodgers hired Roberts as a first-time manager, gave him the keys to the Ferrari, and even kept it going through some painful Octobers.

Maybe the Padres have learned something. Stammen fits a profile similar to Murphy's in 2015. He had no managerial experience, was hand-picked by Preller, and was under fire quickly. Calls for his job were loud during the Padres’ midseason slide. Then the Padres caught fire, swept the Cubs, and got knocked out by the best team in baseball in the NLDS in four very competitive games. There were mistakes, yes. He left Mason Miller in the game too long in Game Two. Some bad breaks had nothing to do with Stammen.

These things happen with a first-year manager learning on the job. It doesn’t mean they need to start over.

Whoever wins this NLCS will mean a manager who once managed for the Padres wins a pennant. If San Diego wants to stop watching its old coaching staff play for championships, it should start by finding the same runway Roberts and Murphy did somewhere else. Stammen did a nice job in his first season on the job, and is signed through 2028, so they’d do well to honor that commitment and then some.

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