Tim Bogar and Skip Schumaker to interview for Mets' managerial job, sources say
Washington Nationals first base coach Tim Bogar at spring training in 2019. Credit: AP/Jeff Roberson
You can credit Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen for this: He is being thorough.
Another pair of managerial candidates surfaced Friday in Nationals infield and first-base coach Tim Bogar, and Padres first-base coach Skip Schumaker. Sources said the pair either has interviewed or will interview for the job.
That makes at least eight candidates. Bogar and Schumaker join former Yankees and Marlins manager Joe Girardi, Yankees special adviser Carlos Beltran, Mets quality-control coach Luis Rojas, ESPN analyst Eduardo Perez, Twins bench coach Derek Shelton and Diamondbacks vice president of player development Mike Bell.
The Mets have revealed little about their hiring process, so it’s not clear which candidates — if any — have been deemed finalists. The search is unlikely to end before the World Series begins Tuesday, during which Major League Baseball prefers other teams not to make news.
Because the Nationals swept the Cardinals in the National League Championship Series, Washington has almost a full week off before the World Series. That opened up Bogar’s schedule to meet with the Mets, a team with which he has several noteworthy ties.
The Mets drafted Bogar in 1987 and he played for the major-league team from 1993 to 1996. He lasted nine seasons in the bigs, including four with the Astros and one with the Dodgers. He mostly was a shortstop but also played the other three infield positions, leftfield and even pitched twice.
More relevant to the modern Mets, Bogar has a relationship with assistant GM Allard Baird from their time in Boston. Bogar was on the Red Sox’s major-league staff from 2009 to 2012, moving from first-base coach to third-base coach to bench coach.
Bogar has coached 10 seasons in the majors, also spending time with the Mariners, Rangers and Rays. He was Texas' interim manager for 22 games in 2014 and he was a minor-league manager for six years in the Astros, Indians and Angels farm systems.
In considering Schumaker, Van Wagenen is tapping into his Creative Artists Agency network, a frequent source of Mets additions on and off the field the past year. Schumaker is represented by CAA, a company with a baseball department that Van Wagenen helped run until being hired by the Mets last October.
Schumaker played 11 seasons in the majors — mostly the Cardinals, with whom he won a World Series in 2011, then the Dodgers and Reds — through 2015. Since then, he has dabbled in the front office (as a baseball operations assistant) and spent two seasons as a first-base coach with the Padres.
MLB Network was the first to report Bogar’s candidacy. The Athletic was first on Schumaker.
With David Lennon
