The Washington Nationals have been very busy this offseason, as the club is hoping to return to their winning ways of the 2010s soon. It obviously is not going to be an easy task to complete, but the new President of Baseball Operations Paul Toboni is seemingly already off to a great start in his early tenure.
After hiring a first-time manager of their own in Blake Butera, who is just 33-years-old. it seems as if other teams around baseball are also following the similar trend of hiring young and upcoming managers who might just be the next prodigy.
Additionally, a second former Washington Nationals player has been hired as a manager for a team in the Pacific Time Zone, following the hire of Kurt Suzuki to the Los Angeles Angels earlier this offseason as well. Suzuki had been identified as a quick riser in the managerial ranks, and Stammen was viewed in a similar light, especially in the San Diego Padres organization.
But who did the Padres bring in as their new skipper? Former Washington Nationals righty Craig Stammen is now set to be the next leader of the Padres, making it a huge accomplishment for the 4-year-old.
After being drafted by the Nationals in the 12th round of the 2005 MLB Draft, Stammen made his big league debut for the club in 2009, and would go on to spend parts of 7 seasons with the team, appearing in 229 games and pitching to a 3.91 ERA and 1.310 WHIP, before going on to spend his final 6 seasons with the Padres.
As part of that 2005 Nationals draft class, the team drafted a fair amount of big leaguers in Ryan Zimmerman, Justin Maxwell, Marco Estrada, John Lannan, Ryan Buchter, Tyler Moore, Scott Barnes, and Stammen. That class in many ways helped produce quality players that would go on to help the Nationals as they grew towards contention in the early 2010s, and Stammen played a big part in that.
One interesting tidbit that I actually had forgotten about but was reminded about by a friend of mine was that while Stammen was with the Padres, he actually served up 4 consecutive homers to the Nationals in a 5-2 victory for the visiting Nationals in San Diego in early June of 2019. The 4 homers came from Howie Kendrick, Trea Turner, Adam Eaton, and Anthony Rendon, and Stammen had the honor of serving up all 4 of the homers.
Hopefully, the Nationals can experience similar success against Stammen's club whenever they face off against each other, but I personally will be rooting for Stammen's success besides those games.