Bruce Bochy will turn 70 next year as he enters his 28th season as a major league manager, and he is not looking beyond that right now.
He knows exactly where he wants the Texas Rangers to be, especially after they failed to make the playoffs this season while trying to defend the World Series title they won with him last year when he returned from retirement.
“I’m still hungry to get back. Yeah, I’m disappointed, just like all of us. That’s why I got back in the game,” Bochy said Tuesday. “That’s what drives me. It’s still there, and that’s where I’m at right now.
We’re working to get this thing back to where we want to be, and that’s getting back to the postseason and winning the championship.”
Bochy has finished the first two seasons of his three-year contract with the Rangers. In his first year, the team went from six straight losing seasons to winning their first world title — which was his fourth. Now, they are coming off a season with a record of 78-84, falling below .500 on May 21.
Without going into details about his contract, Bochy mentioned that he is happy where he is.
“It couldn’t have worked out better,” he said. “We’ve talked about my situation, believe me, and this is where I will end up.”
Bochy has 2,171 career wins, placing him eighth all-time and making him the most successful active manager, with 574 more wins than Bob Melvin, who is in his 21st season. Bochy managed the San Diego Padres from 1995-2006 and the San Francisco Giants from 2007-2019, winning World Series titles with the Giants in 2010, 2012, and 2014.
After both of Bochy’s first two championships with the Giants, the team missed the playoffs the following year, but then they bounced back to win the World Series again the year after that. There hasn’t been a repeat champion since the New York Yankees from 1998-2000.
General manager Chris Young, who pitched for Bochy in San Diego and brought him in to manage the Rangers, mentioned that several factors contributed to this losing season.
