3 manager candidates the San Diego Padres should avoid like the plague

The San Diego Padres made the shocking decision to part with Bob Melvin following their disastrous 2023 season. It's definitely fair to blame the manager for some of what transpired, and his relationship with A.J. Preller being as rocky as it evidently was isn't great either, but this team likely wouldn't have done much better with another manager.

Melvin remains in the NL West with the San Francisco Giants while the Padres look for their new manager. This is a crucial hire for the Padres to get right as the team tries to get back on track in 2024 and beyond.

The favorites for the position are reportedly currently Mike Shildt and Ryan Flaherty, both of whom would be solid hires. However, if the Padres steer in another direction, there are three specific managers they need to be avoiding at all costs.

1) Phil Nevin

The Padres are somehow, reportedly at least somewhat interested in Phil Nevin taking over as the team's new manager. Look, I get it. Nevin is a former Padre who had one of the best power-hitting seasons in franchise history. He's also been around the game for a long time in various roles for multiple teams after retiring. The bottom line, however, is his tenure in Anaheim was not good to say the least.

The Angels were a team expecting to win in 2023. Now, they say that every year, but they actually made some strides to make the team better. They made deals in the offseason acquiring players like Tyler Anderson, Hunter Renfroe, and Gio Urshela. They also made big trades at the deadline acquiring Lucas Giolito, C.J. Cron, and Randal Grichuk.

After all of the moves the team made, the Angels missed the playoffs once again and won just 73 games. They went 17-38 after going all in at the deadline to embarrassingly fall out of the race. I'm not going to put all of the blame on Nevin. The Angels were decimated with injuries and still had a flawed roster, but 73 wins feels awfully low, especially with the season Shohei Ohtani had when healthy. He definitely did not get the most out of that roster.

I get it if the Padres don't want to hire a first-time manager after the failures of Jayce Tingler and Andy Green, but they can certainly do better than Phil Nevin.

2) Buck Showalter

Buck Showalter is not a manager the Padres have been publicly linked to, and hopefully it'll stay that way. He's a historically great manager who has a shot to make it to the Hall of Fame one day, but he's just not the right fit for this Padres team for a couple of reasons.

First, Showalter reportedly had disagreements with the front office during his time with the Mets. They'd want him to play certain guys because of certain analytics, and Showalter was not a fan of Billy Eppler and the front office telling him what to do. I'm no expert, but going from one guy who did not mesh well with the front office to another with that same history wouldn't be the wisest thing.

Obviously there's no telling whether Showalter and Preller would have any issues until the two actually start working together, but the move would just feel very lateral if the Padres decided to bring Showalter in.

Another reason for the Padres to not consider Buck is the fact that he just hasn't won enough when it matters. He's had great regular season success, but Showalter has gone just 10-16 in his postseason career. Showalter has 22 years of managerial experience and has yet to win a single pennant, let alone a World Series. Again, obviously not all his fault, but he's certainly played a role. Just ask Zack Britton.