MLB’s Managerial Carousel Spins Early As MLB Playoffs Begin

Major League Baseball’s managerial carousel has begun with force, as the recriminations arrive from missing the postseason. 

As the league begins the playoffs Tuesday with a new-look group of teams, several others that missed the playoffs will move forward with new managers. Among them:

• The Angels did not pick up the 2026 option for Ron Washington. Washington missed much of the season after undergoing quadruple bypass heart surgery. Interim manager Ray Montgomery also will not return.
• The Giants fired Bob Melvin, with his two seasons in San Francisco both ending out of the postseason, with the decision arriving less than three months after the club had picked up Melvin’s 2026 contract option.
• The Rangers parted ways with Bruce Bochy, just two years after winning a World Series. Texas has offered Bochy a front-office advisory role to stay with the team, but it’s not known whether he’ll accept.
• The Twins fired Rocco Baldelli, with his seven years including three division titles, but just one playoff berth in the last five years.

Several other changes could also be soon forthcoming elsewhere around the league. The Nationals, Orioles, and Rockies, meanwhile, have interim managers after firings earlier this year and decisions of their own to make for 2026.

Front-Office Domino Effect?

In many of these instances, the teams that are changing managers are also in the midst of larger ownership or strategic shifts that are influencing these decisions. The Pohlad family, who owns the Twins, recently pulled the franchise back off the market and is now looking to restructure much of the team in the wake of fading performance both on and off the field. 

The Giants, similarly, are trying to determine how to compete in the National League West division against the rival Dodgers and Padres. San Francisco went a combined 7–19 against those teams this year, despite committing $182 million in the offseason to shortstop Willy Adames in the richest free-agent deal in franchise history, and then taking on more than $250 million in future salary obligations in a midseason trade for slugger Rafael Devers.

“[We’re] just looking to find a different voice that can take us in a different direction,” Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey said. 

One Team Standing Pat, Sort Of

An outlier to the run of firings is the Mets. The club will retain manager Carlos Mendoza, despite a particularly ugly end to the season that did not meet expectations built in part from a $341.8 million luxury-tax payroll, MLB’s second largest behind the Dodgers. No decisions have been made, however, for the rest of the on-field coaching staff.

“We are all disappointed. We were all frustrated—[Mendoza] as much or more than anybody else,” Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said. “But I still believe he’s a very good manager, and I think he’s going to demonstrate that.”

Mets owner Steve Cohen tweeted earlier this week that fan “emotions tell me how much you care and continue to motivate the organization to do better.”