Former St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Shildt joins Padres

Former St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Shildt has joined the San Diego Padres as a part-time consultant for player development.

When the St. Louis Cardinals abruptly fired Mike Shildt as manager, he was immediately connected to the San Diego Padres.

Shildt is a veteran manager, knows how to command respect in the clubhouse and is good at maximizing talent on a roster. For a Padres team that had lost its locker room under Jayce Tingler, he seemed like a logical choice to head to San Diego, where he would immediately step into a job that comes with World Series expectations.

But the Padres ended up hiring Bob Melvin, the highly regarded Oakland A’s manager, for the same position. It left Shildt without a job, with the former Cardinals manager eventually joining the commissioners office working alongside former major-league executives Theo Epstein and Michael Hill.

Now, Shildt is joining the Padres … but as an on-field consultant for player development, the team announced. Shildt will continue his work with the commissioners office, telling Katie Woo of The Athletic: “I’m excited about being a part-time consultant with the Padres in their player development department,” Shildt said, noting his full-time responsibility will be in the on-field operations department with the commissioner’s office.

Working in both the commissioners office and the Padres is a smart play by Shildt. For one, it gets him experience from two different perspectives of the game, and let’s him learn from Epstein, a Hall of Fame executive, A.J. Preller and Melvin, regarded as perhaps the best manager in baseball. It also allows him to take a step back and reflect on his time in St. Louis, something he said is important to him.

It adds to Shildt’s already impressive resume and it would not be a surprise if he landed another manager position by 2023. It’s a surprise he didn’t get more interest in 2022, though teams had questions regarding what the “philosophical differences” were between Shildt and John Mozeliak.