Dave Roberts and Pat Murphy never looked destined to cross paths again in October back in 2015. One game into Roberts’ brief run as the Padres’ manager, San Diego lost on June 15 after Bud Black was fired, and Murphy was installed the next day. Now, 11 years later, they’re meeting as opposing managers in the National League Championship Series, with Murphy’s Brewers facing Roberts’ Dodgers.
It’s the kind of detail that feels almost too neat for baseball, except the scars are real. Murphy’s Brewers eliminated the Padres in four games, while Roberts is still chasing another title in Los Angeles - a third straight and fourth in seven years.
The whole thing reaches back to A.J. Preller’s first full season as Padres general manager in 2015, when he built a roster he believed could win immediately.
Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Wil Myers, James Shields and Craig Kimbrel all arrived in that winter overhaul, and the team opened 32-33 before Black was dismissed. Suddenly, the dugout kept changing faces.
Roberts got one game. Mark Kotsay, another future big league manager, was in the mix too.
But the job went to Murphy, then at AAA El Paso, whose background included college stops at Notre Dame and Arizona State. Preller wanted a different voice.
The result was more of the same. The Padres went 42-54 the rest of the way and finished 18 games behind the Dodgers, and Murphy was gone before the offseason arrived.
From there, the two men took different paths and kept climbing. Roberts went to Los Angeles.
Murphy headed to Milwaukee to serve as Craig Counsell’s bench coach, a role he held for eight years before replacing Counsell. Today, Roberts has three championships and a pile of wins with the Dodgers.
Murphy has three NL Central titles, back-to-back NL Manager of the Year awards, and a Brewers team that won more games this season than any in franchise history.
Murphy, for his part, held no grudge when the subject came up at Petco Park during the NLDS. He made a point of praising 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 sounds like humility, but it also sounds like an honest assessment. Murphy was in his mid-50s, had no big league coaching experience, and was dropped into a veteran clubhouse with almost no time to settle in. Preller has since called him one of the real talents in the game.
The larger issue for San Diego isn’t just that it let both men go. It’s what came afterward.
Craig Stammen is the eighth Padres manager since Black was fired, or the sixth since Murphy. Andy Green lasted through 2019.
Rod Barajas finished that season. Jayce Tingler got two years.
Bob Melvin stayed for two seasons before leaving for San Francisco. Mike Schildt stepped away after 2025 with time left on his deal.
In that same stretch, the Dodgers have had one manager, and the Brewers have had one change after years of continuity behind the same bench coach.
Neither Roberts nor Murphy was polished in 2015. Both became elite because their organizations gave them room to grow into the job.
Milwaukee kept Murphy in the fold for nearly a decade before handing him the keys. Los Angeles brought in Roberts as a first-time manager and let him keep steering through the rough October stretches that came with it.
There’s a lesson there, and it circles back to Stammen. He entered with no managerial experience, was hand-picked by Preller, and was under pressure almost immediately.
Calls for his dismissal got loud during the Padres’ midseason slide. Then the club caught fire, swept the Cubs, and lost to the best team in baseball in the NLDS in four tight games.
Stammen made mistakes - including leaving Mason Miller in too long in Game Two - but some of the breaks against him had nothing to do with him.
That’s what a first-year manager’s learning curve looks like. It doesn’t automatically mean a reset is needed.
However this NLCS ends, one thing is already clear: a former Padres manager will be going to the pennant round. If San Diego wants to stop watching old dugout decisions pay off elsewhere, the next step is obvious - give a manager the kind of runway Roberts and Murphy eventually got. Stammen is signed through 2028, and the Padres would be wise to honor that commitment and then some.
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