Former UC Santa Barbara Gaucho Skip Schumaker was named the 2023 National League Manager of the Year on Tuesday after a strong season with the Miami Marlins in his first year as a big league manager.
Schumaker, who played baseball at UCSB in the early 2000s, became the eighth person in league history to win the award as a first-time manager.
When he was named to the position last offseason, the Marlins were coming off a 93-loss season and seemed to be far from the likes of the Braves and Phillies within their own division.
However, Schumaker found a way to piece together a solid offseason and rolled that into the regular season, where Miami went 84-78 and clinched its first postseason appearance in a 162-game season in 20 years.
It wasn’t easy for the former Gaucho and the Marlins, as they sat below .500 (66-67) at the end of August and went on a tear in September to sneak into the postseason. On top of this, 48.8% of Miami’s wins during the 2023 season came in comeback fashion.
“I dreamt of playing in the Major Leagues one day, and then I fell in love with coaching, and then I got this opportunity,” Schumaker told MLB. “I never once during the season [was like], ‘Oh, if I win two more games, I’m going to maybe have a shot of winning the Manager of the Year.’
“That’s insane. Nobody really thinks of that. I hope not, because you shouldn’t be in that seat. It was never about me. I just did whatever I could to win that day.”
Schumaker and the Marlins will look to carry some of the momentum from the 2023 campaign over to 2024 as they look to compete in a tough National League East division.
