ARLINGTON, Texas — Skip Schumaker, who became the first UC Santa Barbara Baseball alumnus to manage a Major League Baseball team and earned 2023 Manager of the Year honors, will be back in an MLB dugout for 2026. The Texas Rangers named Schumaker their 21^st full-time manager on Friday. Schumaker had previously been serving as a senior advisor for the Rangers during the 2025 season.
 
"We are thrilled to announce this promotion and have Skip leading this club in the dugout," Rangers General Manager Chris Young said in a statement. "Over his past year as a senior advisor to our baseball operations group, Skip has proven to be driven, passionate and thorough in everything he does. He has a winning spirit and energy, and we are fortunate that someone so highly regarded in the industry has agreed to become our manager.
 
Schumaker previously managed the Miami Marlins for two seasons, winning National League Manager of the Year after leading the Marlins to their first postseason appearance since 2009 in his first year on the job in 2023. The Marlins' 84-78 record was a remarkable turnaround after a 93-loss season in 2022 and their first time finishing with a winning percentage above .500 in a 162-game season since 2009 (the team went 31-29 in the 60-game 2020 season). Miami's 2023 mark was also the fifth-best winning percentage in franchise history. He left the club by mutual agreement after the 2024 season and joined the Rangers' front office, where he and another former Gaucho, Michael Young, worked as special assistants to Chris Young.
 
A left-handed-hitting infielder, Schumaker came to Santa Barbara from Torrance and still owns the program's records for single-season hits (100) and at bats (250) in a season that saw him named First Team All-Big West. He also hit .400 that year, which ranks fifth all-time, and scored 65 runs, which ranks sixth. Following that season, he was the first of nine Gauchos taken in the 2001 MLB Draft being selected in the fifth round by St. Louis. Schumaker played 11 seasons in MLB, winning two World Series titles with the Cardinals (2006 & 2011), and spent five years as a bench coach for the San Diego Padres (2018-2021) and the Cardinals (2022) before being hired by the Marlins.
 
Schumaker takes the helm of a Texas club that went 81-81 in 2025, finishing third in the American League West and missing the postseason by six games. He inherits a squad led by 2025 All-Star Jacob DeGrom and 2024 Silver Slugger Josh Smith, with MLB's No. 6 prospect, Sebastian Walcott, in Double-A.