Heath Bell isn’t buying the Craig Stammen hire.
The former Padres closer, who made three All-Star teams in his four seasons finishing games in San Diego, took aim at president of baseball operations AJ Preller on Wednesday’s episode of Friar Territory, calling Stammen another one of Preller’s “project” moves. Bell said the choice feels like the latest gamble that hasn’t gone the way the organization hoped.
“You know if ... you want to follow your manager or not, and I just feel like Craig's made a lot of mistakes and he's not sure what direction he's going," Bell said. "And unfortunately, this is another AJ surprise or another project that just has not panned out.”
He went further, pointing to Preller’s track record and the way managers have cycled through San Diego in recent years.
“Every project that he's done has not worked," he said of Preller. "And every manager that's had manager experience have left early in their contract. When do we actually look and say, maybe that guy's the problem - not the people on the field, not the people that he puts there?”
Stammen’s hiring was unusual from the start. The Padres passed over more experienced coaches and even future Hall of Fame slugger Albert Pujols to give him the job.
The move also fits a broader pattern in San Diego. The Padres have had only one losing season this decade, in 2021, but Stammen is already their fourth manager since 2019, when Andy Green was fired and Rod Barajas took over on an interim basis.
That kind of turnover looks even stranger when you stack it against the franchise’s past. From 1995, Bruce Bochy’s first year, until Bud Black was dismissed midway through the 2015 season, the Padres used just two managers. Since then, counting interim appointments, they’ve had eight in 11 years.
The last three full-time managers - Jayce Tingler, Bob Melvin and Mike Shildt - each lasted no more than two seasons.
And it isn’t just the dugout that’s been reshaped. The Padres also added Steven Souza Jr. as hitting coach and Randy Knorr as bench coach before the 2026 season, making clear that the overhaul goes beyond Stammen.
Still, the manager is usually the first one under the microscope, and the numbers aren’t helping. San Diego sits at .500 with a minus-43 run differential, and unless things turn around fast, the Padres will miss the postseason for the third time in the last seven seasons.
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