Washington Nationals World Series Champion Wants to Manage the Miami Marlins
A former Washington Nationals World Series-winning pitcher has reportedly made a case to manage for the team he debuted with almost 20 years ago.
Barry Jackson of Miami Herald reported that 16-year MLB veteran Anibal Sanchez has told the Miami Marlins that he would like to be their next manager.
The Marlins and former skipper Skip Schumaker agreed to go their separate ways after a disappointing 62-100 record in 2024. Miami president Peter Bendix is supposedly looking for someone with connections to the team for their next manager.
Sanchez made his MLB debut with the Marlins in 2006. He was a great pitcher for Miami before the team traded him to the Detroit Tigers for a haul of prospects at the 2012 trade deadline.
He continued to be solid for the Tigers for a few years, leading the MLB in ERA back in 2013. By 2017, though, he was splitting time between the rotation and bullpen and had his ERA balloon up to 6.41.
The Venezuela native revived his career with the Atlanta Braves at the age of 34.
His 2018 campaign was the best he had put together in over five seasons. The Braves only signed him to a one-year minor league contract which meant he could head back to the open market the next season.
The Nationals were the squad that ended up picking him up, hoping he'd be able to keep the momentum going from the previous.
He inked to a two-year, $19 million deal with Washington.
During the 2019 World Series run, Sanchez was a perfect end of the rotation pitcher.
In the regular season, he had a 3.85 ERA and a 1.271 WHIP over 30 starts. His consistency and availability in the rotation proved crucial even though the team had three pitchers ahead of him putting up monster numbers.
His biggest game in the opening of the NLCS round when he pitched 7.2 innings of one-hit, no run baseball in a game that was won 2-0.
Overall, he posted an impressive 2.50 ERA over 18 innings of work in that postseason. That was the first and only World Series ring he won in his career.
After the close of 2020, which was much worse than the year before, he became a free agent. He skipped 2021 before coming back to baseball for one more season with the Nationals in 2022.
He went out as a solid pitcher, posting a 4.28 ERA over 14 starts at the age of 38.
A player with as much experience and knowledge as Sanchez could make for a great manager, even if the Marlins end up going in another direction.
