(San Diego) Mike Shildt has been hired as manager of the San Diego Padres, meaning he will be back in a Major League Baseball dugout two years after being surprisingly fired by the San Diego Cardinals. St. Louis despite leading them to the playoffs for a third straight season.

This is what the Padres announced on Tuesday, specifying that it was a two-year contract.

Shildt succeeds Bob Melvin, who was hired by the San Francisco Giants on October 25, with one year remaining on his contract with the Padres. The departure ended a tumultuous two-year relationship with general manager A. J. Preller.

Shildt was voted National League Manager of the Year in 2019 while with the Cardinals. He will take control of a club with an imposing payroll that greatly disappointed in 2023, a year after reaching the National League championship series.

The Padres then invested US$258 million in their workforce at the dawn of the 2023 campaign, thereby posting the third-largest payroll in the Major Leagues.