The San Diego Padres have finally made a decision as to who their new manager will be. After Mike Shildt's retirement, San Diego was left looking for their new skipper. The team decided to go a little unorthodox with their pick, choosing former Padres reliever Craig Stammen to be their new manager.

It's a surprising turn of events for the Padres, who interviewed multiple people for their open managerial role. Among the candidates for San Diego were St. Louis Cardinals legend Albert Pujols, former catcher Nick Hundley, and current Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla. With the exception of Pujols, most of their candidates had ties to the Padres.

It's important to note that Stammen has no prior managerial experience before taking the Padres role. That being said, the president of baseball operations A.J Preller was reportedly impressed by their former reliever.

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“According to people familiar with the interview process, Stammen impressed Padres officials in his interviews with the genuine manner in which he communicated, his conviction about how a team should be run and his knowledge of the organization,” Kevin Acee reported for the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Preller has long held Stammen in high regard for his leadership skills and straightforward way of communicating. Preller had spoken several times over the years about Stammen having a future in the game in “whatever (role) he wants.”

Stammen's history with the Padres is pretty stellar. The former Padres reliever had a 3.36 ERA through 333 games for the team. That being said, his legacy with the Padres is his participation in “The Stammen Game.” There, Stammen threw 1 2/3 scoreless innings as part of a shut-out effort in the postseason to give San Diego their first postseason series win since 1998.