By STEPHEN HAWKINS
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Bruce Bochy will not return as manager of the Texas Rangers after a three-year stint that began with the franchise’s first World Series championship in 2023 before missing the playoffs and not having a winning record in both seasons since then.
The Rangers announced Monday night that the team and Bochy mutually agreed to end his managerial tenure in Texas. Bochy has been offered a front office role to stay in an advisory capacity.
The move came a day after the Rangers finished 81-81. That was the first .500 record ever for the franchise that began as the Washington Senators in 1961 before moving to Texas in 1972, and a first for Bochy in 28 seasons overall managing San Diego, San Francisco and Texas.
Bochy was at the end of the three-year contract he got when Chris Young, one of his former pitchers, hired him after the Rangers’ sixth consecutive losing season. Bochy went 249-237 with the Rangers.
“Bruce Bochy is one of the greatest managers in baseball history and he will forever hold a place in the hearts of Ranger fans after bringing home the first World Series title in franchise history in 2023,” said Young, then their general manager and now the Rangers’ president of baseball operations. “Boch brought class and respect to our club in his return to the dugout and we will always take pride in being part of his Hall of Fame career.”
After turning 70 this season as baseball’s winningest active manager, Bochy’s 2,252 wins rank sixth among all managers — all five ahead of him are in the Hall of Fame. No managers since Casey Stengel won his seventh with the New York Yankees in 1958 have more World Series titles than Bochy’s four, including three in San Francisco.
Bochy had been out of managing for three seasons when hired by Texas. He had stepped out of the Giants dugout at the end of 2019 after 13 seasons and three championships from 2010-14. That followed 12 seasons and another National League pennant with the Padres.
San Francisco, also 81-81 this season, fired second-year manager Bob Melvin on Monday after the Giants missed the playoffs for the fourth year in a row. The Minnesota Twins fired Rocco Baldelli, ending his seven-year tenure that included three AL Central titles, but only one playoff appearance, over his final five seasons.
The Giants’ president of baseball operations is Buster Posey, the 2012 National League MVP and seven-time All-Star catcher who played all but the last of his 12 MLB seasons with Bochy as his manager.
Bochy over the last week of the season wouldn’t answer questions about his future with the Rangers, saying that would have to wait until after the season. But he said he was having a great time and didn’t sound like he was ready to be done as a manager.
“It’s as much fun as I’ve had in the game,” Bochy said last week about managing again. “I said this when I came back, you have a deeper appreciation when you’re out, especially for three years and you realize what you have, how blessed you are to be doing what you’re doing. It’s been a lot of fun and I still love it, and enjoy it.”
And that was during a strange and frustrating season on the field for the Rangers, who for the first time had a pitching staff that led the majors with in ERA (3.47). They also set a single-season MLB record with their .99112 fielding percentage, bettering the 2013 Baltimore Orioles’ mark of .99104.
Among the potential replacements for Bochy in Texas is former Miami Marlins manager Skip Schumaker, who joined the Rangers last November as a senior adviser for baseball operations.
The 45-year-old Schumaker was the 2023 NL Manager of the Year after the Marlins went 84-78 and made the playoffs. They slipped to 62-100 in 2024 with a roster decimated by trades and injuries before the team and Schumaker mutually agreed that he would not return for this season. He was previously a bench coach for St. Louis, where he had played for the Cardinals during their 2011 World Series championship over Texas.
Young said Schumaker would be a candidate, but that there had not yet been any conversations within the organization about the search process.
The Rangers went more than a month at the end of the season without their half-billion dollar middle infield of two-time World Series MVP shortstop Corey Seager (appendectomy) and second baseman Marcus Semien (left foot), as well as 35-year-old right-hander Nathan Eovaldi, who was 11-3 with a career-best 1.73 ERA over his 14 MLB seasons before getting shut down because of a rotator cuff strain.
Even without those standouts, and several rookies filling in, the Rangers went on a 13-3 run to get within two games of the AL West lead on Sept. 13, and in the thick of the wild-card chase. They then lost their next eight games and were eliminated from playoff contention.
The only manager older than Bochy this season was 73-year-old Ron Washington, but he didn’t manage a game for the Los Angeles Angels after June 19 because of quadruple bypass heart surgery.
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