It didn’t take very long for the Milwaukee Brewers to find Craig Counsell’s successor.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported Monday night that the Brewers are expected to name Pat Murphy as their new manager. Murphy is an in-house candidate who had spent the last eight years as a bench coach in Milwaukee under Counsell.
Counsell made the shock decision last week to leave the Brewers for a major division rival. That opened the door for the 64-year-old Murphy, a very respected figure in the clubhouse who had already filled in for Counsell during spot absences in the past, to become Milwaukee’s next manager.
Murphy only has a partial season of interim managing under his belt, going 42-54 (.438) with the San Diego Padres after then-manager Bud Black was fired in 2015. But he has a multitude of coaching experience at the collegiate level, including managing Notre Dame from 1988-94 and managing Arizona State from 1995-2009. Murphy had also worked as a manager in the minor leagues before joining Counsell’s staff in 2015.
It appears Murphy beat out a few much bigger names for the Brewers job. Milwaukee could still be making some wholesale changes over the coming weeks and months though, so Murphy will have his work cut out for him in steering the ship.
