NL WILD CARD SERIES: CUBS VS PADRES

September 28, 2026

Craig Stammen

Petco Park

San Diego Padres

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. How do you think that managing the pitching chaos that was not actually chaos, but what you guys did earlier this season, how do you think it sets you up in managing in the postseason? What did it do for you or help you with?

CRAIG STAMMEN: It was a little trial run. I think we've got a better pitching staff overall than what we had then, but we've got a lot of moving parts and it's playoff baseball. Similar to that time of the year, our backs were against the wall, and in the playoffs your backs are always against the wall and trying to prevent runs as best as possible.

So hopefully it's an advantage that we can use from the past.

Q. Then for you managing in the playoffs for the first time, is there anything that you lean on, any kind of advice you try to get or any way that you try to set yourself up to handle anything that's going to come with that?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, I'm excited about it. It will probably be similar to the first time playing in the postseason. But there's a lot of guys in our organization that have poured into me this year that have been former managers, that have managed in the playoffs and can give me a lot of advice.

I just got a lot of support from the entire organization, and it feels really good. We're all in this together, and we'll see if we can get this thing done.

Q. Do you have any starting pitching plans beyond Michael?

CRAIG STAMMEN: No.

Q. Have you settled on whether two catchers or three catchers?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I have not settled on that either.

Q. What could the benefit of three catchers be? I think you've done it a couple times where you've been able to pinch-hit and one guy get another guy off the bench. What is the benefit there?

CRAIG STAMMEN: The benefit is how we kind of went the month of September with Ethan and Freddie and Campy. We could interchange them. We could start all three of them at any point. We feel really good about our three catchers. I feel like those three are as strong as any group of three in the Big Leagues. They'll bring different skill sets to the table. Ethan's got the left-handed bat. Campy is kind of hitter slash can be a good catcher, and Freddy is more of your defensive catcher, right-handed hitter.

All three of those guys could play a huge part in this Wild Card series.

Q. What have you seen from Ethan in the month? Obviously the playoffs is a different challenge than the end of the regular season. You played some important games down the stretch. What did he show you during that time?

CRAIG STAMMEN: He showed you he can handle it. The lights weren't too big. The third deck wasn't too big for him. He even got off to not a great start offensively. He was able to right that ship, handle it. Here lately he's been a big part of some of the biggest rallies we've had in some of the most important games.

Him finishing out the clinching game in L.A., him finishing out the home-field advantage games. He felt the pressure of those games. He was catching Mason at the end of them. So that's good experience that he has going into this playoff atmosphere.

Q. Craig, can you give us a little bit of insight in what's going into the analysis of how you're selecting your pitching?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I think we come up with a game plan on the Cubs hitters and find out what we believe, what our pitchers best match up with, and then determining the amount of pitchers that you have on the staff and who will be the starters for all three games, all that kind of stuff goes into it.

All those discussions are still going on until we hammer out that roster.

Q. So basically you'll have a decision on it all when you establish the roster?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah.

Q. So tomorrow basically?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yes, exactly. Even how many position players to carry, that all affects the pitching.

Q. I know you like to communicate roles for your position players, texts night before, morning of. When you don't get any pitching information from the opponent, how much more difficult is that for you to set up for the series?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I think we've got a veteran team, and they pretty much know how the things go, how the lineup has been constructed here of late, and what roles they'll be in during the season.

The guys that are on a little bit of a bench role, platoon players, they'll be the ones a little bit in flux. We've kinds of done it this way all year. The other team hasn't announced their starting pitcher the day before every time either, sometimes leading up to game time. So it will be status quo, no big deal.

Q. Craig, two questions, if I could. First, how big of a factor could home-field advantage be for you guys this year with the crowd you have as opposed to having to play at Wrigley last year?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I think we love playing at home, and we get to hit last. Those are the two biggest advantages that we have. Other than that, we're always -- when we're scoring hopefully, we'll be given the energy. They'll be on our side and hopefully feel that support. I think it's just nice, we're going to be sleeping in our own beds tonight and be able to show up to the ballpark like a normal day and be able toe go play baseball.

It feels comfortable, we'll be here in San Diego. The weather won't be a factor, we know that. Just excited to be able to play at home in front of our fans though.

Q. A big picture question if I could. Velo was up for a third straight year around the Big Leagues. There were 100 mile an hour fastballs this year. To what extent does velo go into making pitching decisions?

CRAIG STAMMEN: The first thing I think of is I'm glad I got out of the game when I did, and the other part is, you know, it does. There's definitely batters that do not handle higher velocity as well as some other batters. So you're able to maybe make some pitching decisions based on that.

We've got a couple guys in our bullpen that throw pretty hard. We feel really good about putting them in the game.

Q. Craig, how do you evaluate how your team has done with ABS this first season, and how might your strategy with that change here in the postseason?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I think it's an ever-evolving strategy. We haven't been, if you look at the numbers, not great at it, but we've also won some games with it too. I think we'll keep tweaking it, keep talking about it every day, and keep trying to remind the players when we have challenges, when we don't, when's a good time, when's not a good time. Those conversations are always ongoing.

Q. You made it clear pretty early on that Michael King would be your Game 1 starter in this series. How would you evaluate Michael's season and the value of having him on the mound in particular to begin the postseason?

CRAIG STAMMEN: He had a great season, and I think, number one, he would say he's been healthy throughout the whole season. He's made every single start. I can't say that about our entire starting rotation. For that matter, he was really, really, really important to our team. He was able to stabilize our staff when it wasn't very stable.

So Michael has been the guy we leaned on throughout the year, and we're going to continue to lean on him through the postseason.

Q. Your stars getting it going obviously was a big part of the turnaround this season, but all year going back to the first handful of games this season, you had contributions from maybe players you didn't expect. That's been a theme all season. This time of year, it can be a time where unexpected guys step up, unsung heroes. What is the value of building that type of identity, that type of culture throughout the season when you arrive at the postseason?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, that's a good question. I think we definitely wanted to play all the guys we had on the roster throughout the season to keep our main guys fresh was probably the number one goal.

Then these guys got hot and showed what they can do in the Big Leagues, what they're capable of, and they're going to play a role in these Wild Card series too. We're going to need contributions from everybody, not just the star players. You never know who's going to come to the plate in a big moment and hopefully get a big hit for us.

Q. I know you mentioned the benefits of being at home. Setting aside 2020, what would you tell people about the environment of postseason games at Petco Park in your experience here?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, it's great. It's nice to feel 45,000 people behind you waving the yellow towels. It's just a good feeling when you go out there, get the lineups announced, that we're at home. There's no boo birds, and the whole fan base is for us and not against us.

Q. I know your favorite thing to do is not to talk about Craig Stammen, but how would you evaluate Craig Stammen as a manager, and what do you think you did best to get this team to 91 wins and the position they're in right now?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I don't know if I evaluate myself. I think that's for everyone else to do. I try to pay not too much attention to it. It's up to AJ and those guys, and they've given me good advice and tell me what I can do better and try to listen to that.

I think the number one thing of evaluation is we can always get better. It's a growth mentality. No matter how good the season went or how great a job you think you did, there's always ways to improve and get better. I felt like that as a player; same mentality as a manager.

Q. What is the best advice you've gotten about managing in the playoffs for the first time?

CRAIG STAMMEN: I've gotten a lot of good advice. I think it's relying on your coaching staff and using them to help you stay calm in the moments. And the other part is trusting yourself, trusting the preparation that you've put in. We've been having meetings about how to handle the Cubs, how to manage against the Cubs, how we want to game play against this team, tough team that we're playing.

So it's just trusting that preparation, trusting how your mind's thinking, and just go for it. Don't second guess yourself.