ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Bruce Bochy is in the final games of his three-year contract with the Texas Rangers, a span that began with the franchise's only World Series title, but baseball's winningest active manager isn't ready to discuss if he will be back next season.
“Season’s not over. It’s something we’ll talk about when the season’s over,” Bochy said before Thursday's home finale against Minnesota. "So I’m going to stick with that right now and see if we can win a couple of games here.”
Both Bochy,
who turned 70 this season, and Chris Young, the team's president of baseball operations, said they will talk about next season after this one is done. The Rangers, who will miss the playoffs for the second year in a row since that championship in 2023, finish with three games at Cleveland this weekend.
“The two of us will sit down and talk about where things are, what happened this year, where we’re going," Young said. “There’s things that I’m sure he’s going to want to know about the future of the team and we’ll talk about it, like we did three years ago, and figure it out.”
Young, who pitched a season for Bochy in San Diego, was the Rangers general manager when he hired Bochy as manager after the 2022 season. They were coming off their sixth consecutive losing season, the longest streak in the half-century since the franchise moved to Texas in 1972.
At that time, Bochy had been out of managing for three seasons. He stepped away from the San Francisco Giants in 2019 after 13 seasons and three World Series titles, which followed 12 seasons and a National League pennant with the Padres.
“Just love him. He's great. I love working with him. He’s been wonderful,” Young said. “He came here to win a World Series. He’s helped us accomplish that. And, you know, we’ll figure out what the future holds.”
Young didn't have a timeline on how quickly a decision could be made after the season ends this weekend.
The Rangers were eliminated from playoff contention Tuesday night when they lost their eighth straight game. They won Wednesday night and went into the home finale still able to finish with a winning record if they won two of their last four games.
Bochy went into Thursday's game with 2,251 wins, sixth among all managers — the five ahead of him are all in the Hall of Fame. No managers in the past 60 years have more than Bochy's four World Series titles — he won three with San Francisco — the only ones all-time with more are Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Connie Mack.
“Oh, I’ve really had a great time, and it’s as much fun as I’ve had in the game,” Bochy said of his three seasons back in the dugout. “I said this when I came back, you have a deeper appreciation when you’re out, especially for three years and you realize what you have, how blessed you are to be doing what you’re doing. It's been a lot of fun and I still love it, and enjoy it.”
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB
