The Milwaukee Brewers have found their new manager.
Bench coach Pat Murphy is the Brewers’ new skipper after Craig Counsell’s departure for Chicago, The Post’s Jon Heyman confirmed.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal was first to report the hire.
Murphy has been with Milwaukee since 2015 after he left the San Diego Padres, where he briefly served as interim manager after Bud Black had been fired.
He went 42-54 during his tenure as interim manager in San Diego and had previously coached Counsell in college at the University of Notre Dame.
Murphy had become a serious contender to get the managerial job in recent days.
Brewers general manager Matt Arnold had told reporters during the general manager meetings in Arizona last week that they were ”in very real” discussions with Murphy.
The Brewers GM also outlined what he was looking for in the club’s next manager.
“I want to start with the best human, is probably the way I would characterize it,” Arnold said, according to MLB.com. “It’s hard to go wrong when you have, if you’re using the scouting scale, an ‘80’ human. I think that would be our priority here.”
Questions about Counsell’s future in Milwaukee had been bubbling for some time, but the speculation had been about him taking the job in Queens as Mets manager.
But he shocked the baseball world by taking the job with the division rival Cubs and in the process became the highest-paid manager in baseball by signing a five-year, $40 million deal.
Counsell had played six seasons for Milwaukee before working in various front office roles following his playing time.
He was named the manager in 2015 and led the Brewers to the playoffs in five of the last six seasons at the helm.
It sets up a very interesting dynamic as Counsell and Murphy now go from coworkers to division rivals.
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