ARLINGTON — The Rangers, you should know, once went through three managers in a week, asked a fired manager to stick around a couple of days until they could get somebody else in, interviewed a candidate while they still had a manager in place and once went with the owner’s recommendation over the general manager’s. It’s also the club that fired both Whitey Herzog, Billy Martin and turned down a young candidate named Jim Leyland.
Which is why, all things considered, the fact that the Rangers had a news conference on Friday morning, then waited until 7:45 p.m. to actually break news constitutes an all-things-considered super smooth managerial transition.
In the end, they got their man: Skip Schumaker.
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He was the only man in the hunt. And so even before the club sent out a post-Friday afternoon news dump release, ruining dinner plans and announcing a four-year deal for the 45-year-old Schumaker, it seemed it was only a matter of time before a deal was finalized. We were thinking days, not hours. But appreciate the expediency, guys.
In the morning news conference, president of baseball operations Chris Young had acknowledged that Schumaker, who spent the last season as a Rangers senior adviser after leaving the Miami Marlins’ managerial job, was the leading candidate. He indicated the club didn’t plan to talk to any external candidates. Nor had the Rangers given any teams permission to talk to Schumaker about their openings. Schumaker was expected to be a hot commodity on the managerial market.
“We have a lead candidate internally that we’re focused on,” Young said of the search during his opening remarks, a candidate he later acknowledged was Schumaker. “I really can’t elaborate beyond that, in terms of where we are. That will hopefully materialize and we’ll have updates for you in the coming days.”
And, as the meme goes, a few hours later …
“We are thrilled to announce this promotion and have Skip leading this club in the dugout,” Young said in a statement released by the club Friday night. “Over his past year as a senior advisor to our baseball operations group, Skip has proven to be driven, passionate and thorough in everything he does. He has a winning spirit and energy, and we are fortunate that someone so highly regarded in the industry has agreed to become our manager.”
The club isn’t likely to introduce Schumaker until sometime next week. MLB frowns on teams making announcements during game days during the postseason, which is what led to some of this awkward dance on Friday. The Rangers hadn’t finalized the deal with Schumaker by the morning, but then had to rush to make the official announcement before the division series matchups start Saturday.
So, for now, mostly you get statements.
Like this one from Schumaker: “I am honored and excited for this opportunity to manage the Rangers. While I attained a good understanding of the organization through my front office role this past season, the conversations with Chris Young, Ross Fenstermaker, and others this week have only intensified my interest in this opportunity. I can’t wait to begin the work for 2026.”
With good reason. There’s a ton to work on. Starting with that misfiring offense. But it’s also worth noting here that the Rangers operated with relative warp speed on this hire. They parted ways with Bruce Bochy on Monday, began conversations with Schumaker the next day and hammered things out before the weekend. None of the other four teams that created openings this week are anywhere close to being done.
It’s hard to think of an incoming Rangers manager who has ever had a better foundation for success. Both from a club perspective and that of the incoming manager.
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Schumaker was around the big league team as an observer this season. He was involved in personnel conversations. He visited minor league affiliates. He had an ability to audit the system few ever get ahead of taking a job. He knows what he’s getting into and was well-prepared to ask as many questions of the Rangers as they had of him.
“His questions have been about preferences on communication, style and day-to-day stuff,” Young had said in the morning. “Some of the logistics that come along with the front office-manager relationship, some of the internal staff and how processes are going to work, game review and stuff like that. We’ve had some personnel discussions. I think it’s all great stuff. I think we’re all excited and motivated and energized by what we can accomplish and understanding what a different voice may look like, and I think that will be a good thing.”
About that voice. When asked specifically what he wanted from a “different voice,” Young began with a caveat. Nothing he described, he said, should be perceived as something Bochy “lacked.”
But also, there are some obvious differences. Bochy will be 71 in April. It’s not a great time to be an older manager in MLB. Of the five managerial positions that came open in the first week after the season, only one vacancy came from a place where the incumbent wasn’t eligible for a seniors discount. When teams move on from older managers, they usually seek somebody younger. It’s just how the cycle works.
It’s another element to what made Schumaker so potentially attractive on the market. Also, he had taken just such a younger team, the Marlins, to a 15-game improvement in wins in his first year on the job. It came with a playoff berth and the NL Manager of the Year Award. Then the Marlins changed the leadership above him, slashed payroll and went back to being the Marlins. He announced to the team he wouldn’t be back before the end of the season. He was smart enough to know when his Marlin was cooked, too.
“I think the reality is,” Young said during the morning session, “with a younger team, we’re probably going to need a voice that’s full of energy, that’s hands-on, that’s really working and coaching during the day, out on the field, and establishing relationships throughout the team.
“I just think that with the youth of next year’s team, it’s going to be really important. Development does not stop at the big league level. In fact, it’s probably the most critical part of development. You see a lot of players come up here and struggle initially, and it takes time to get them to the point where they can contribute, and so I think it’s going to be really important for the next manager to have experience with younger players in terms of finishing off that development.”
The Rangers had the perfect guy in mind.
On Friday night, they got him signed.
Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant
Schumaker takes over after Texas parted ways with Bruce Bochy at the end of the 2025 season.
Schumaker, 45, replaces Bruce Bochy, who parted ways with the organization after the 2025 season.
The only way the Rangers can challenge the Astros and Mariners next year is if they don’t make the same mistakes as their AL West bunkmates.
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