Report: Bob Melvin Leaves A's, Agrees to 3-Year Contract as Padres' New Manager

The San Diego Padres will be under the microscope in 2022 after failing to live up to elevated expectations in 2021, and they now have the manager who will look to turn things around after last season.

San Diego and Bob Melvin agreed to a three-year deal on Thursday, per AJ Cassavell of MLB.com.

Alden Gonzalez of ESPN reported the Oakland Athletics picked up Melvin's 2022 option on his contract but allowed him to interview with the Padres.

The San Diego position was open because the Padres announced they fired manager Jayce Tingler on Oct. 6 after the team missed the playoffs with a 79-83 record. It wasn't just that San Diego missed the playoffs—it was the fact it did so after bringing in Yu Darvish and Blake Snell while attempting to build on the momentum its 2020 postseason appearance figured to create.

It also signed star shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. to a massive 14-year contract extension and was a popular World Series pick.

Things seemed to be on track when the Padres were 17 games above .500 in August, but they collapsed down the stretch and missed the playoffs entirely in a loaded National League West. Tatis and Manny Machado got into a public shouting match in the dugout during one game in a moment that seemed to symbolize the team's downfall.

In September, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported many inside the Padres organization did not think Tingler had enough "sway to have quashed a situation that had been brewing for weeks."

Acee noted, "the sentiment Tingler was not the leader they needed or wanted has been growing in some corners of the clubhouse for a while" when writing about the manager's inability to address the Tatis situation as he became frustrated with the team's struggles.

"There are differences of opinion among some of the team's on-field personnel," Acee wrote. "But one thing virtually everyone agreed on in the hours after Saturday's mini-brouhaha was that it was the culmination of an issue a stronger manager would have taken care of weeks ago."

The report also explained many players saw Tingler as just an extension of general manager A.J. Preller and were never truly keen on him as the manager.

That is the situation Melvin is walking into for a team that will still be expected to win as soon as the upcoming season.

Tatis and Machado will anchor the lineup, and Darvish is back to lead the rotation as a five-time All-Star. The talent was there to jump out to an excellent start in 2021, and the goal in 2022 will be to do the same while avoiding the collapse that came with it.

It won't be easy in a division that also features the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, but San Diego hired Melvin because it believes he can establish consistent success within the organization that has been missing of late.

His resume suggests he can.

Melvin coached the Seattle Mariners in 2003 and 2004, the Arizona Diamondbacks for the next five seasons, and the Athletics for 11 years from 2011 through 2021. He finished his tenure in Oakland with a 853-764 record and made the playoffs six times.

He never won a World Series, though, and will look to change that on the Padres.