Best MLB Managers of the Last 25 Years

A Major League Baseball team is never complete without a manager. I've gone over the best World Series games, best quarter century team, and players over the last 25 years in previous stories. I'll have links below to those stories down below in case you missed reading them. In this story, I'll highlight some of my favorite managers since the year 2000. I'll only highlight managers between the years 2000-2024.

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Ron Washington

If you've been a Rangers fan for a long time, chances are you were familiar with Ron Washington's Wash-isms, such as "That's the way baseball go." I consider him and another former Rangers manager, whom I'll highlight later on in this story, as two of my favorite skippers. Ronald Washington was born in April 1952 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He played for five different teams between 1977-1989. His managerial career started in 2007 with the Texas Rangers and led the team to back-to-back World Series appearances in 2010 and 2011. Washington would remain with the Rangers until 2014, not having another managerial position for another decade. He held coaching positions for both the Oakland Athletics and Atlanta Braves, with him winning a World Series title with the latter team in 2021. In November 2023, Washington was hired as the Los Angeles Angels new manager. The team announced this past season that Washington, now 73, would not be back as manager for the 2026 MLB regular season.

Joe Torre

Arguably one of the most well-known figures of the New York Yankees organization, Joe Torre has had a storied career as both a player and manager. Joseph Paul Torre Jr. was born in July 1940 in Brooklyn. He played for three different teams and a manager for five different teams. His accolades include becoming a nine-time All-Star, four-time World Series champion, won Manager of the Year twice, and inducted in both the Yankees and St. Lois Cardinals Hall of Fame. Also, his number 6 was retired by the Yankees on Joe Torre Day in August 2014. That same year, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. As of 2025, the former player and manager is now 85 years old. While we're at it, let's talk about another former player and manager also named Joe...

Joe Girardi

His ejections are always entertaining to watch and hilarious at the same time. This former player and manager was born on October 14, 1964, in Peoria, Illinois. His MLB career began in 1989 for the Chicago Cubs and lasted until 2003, ending it with the St. Louis Cardinals. He played for four different teams and managed for three different teams. Girardi also had a stint as a bench coach for the New York Yankees in 2005. He won four World Series titles: three as a player and one as a manager, with the latter occurring in 2009. After his 2004 retirement, Girardi had broadcasting gigs, with the most recent one as an analyst for the YES Network and the now 61-year-old has had that position since February 2024.

Bruce Bochy

This future Hall of Famer has an impressive resume that many people would admire. Born in April 1955 in France, his Major League Baseball career lasted from 1978 to 1987, playing for three different teams. He's a four-time World Series champion: three as a manager for the San Francisco Giants and the other for the Texas Rangers in 2023. Bochy is now 70 years old and there's no doubt that the former catcher and manager will be inducted into Cooperstown in the near future.

Joe Maddon

If you were to look up the description of the words warm and easygoing in the dictionary, chances are that it describes former manager Joe Maddon. Yes, we have yet another Joe on this list. Born on February 8, 1954, in Pennsylvania, the two-time World Series champion's managerial career lasted from 1996 to 2022. Maddon's last name was short for Maddonini, due to him being born to an Italian father and Polish mother. He was a manager for the Los Angeles Angels, where he would win his first World Series title in 2002, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now simply as the Rays), Chicago Cubs, where he would win his second and final World Series title in 2016, and then returning to the Angels in 2020 until his retirement in 2022, where he was succeeded by Ron Washington.

Jeff Banister

The final manager on this list is someone that almost everyone is familiar with. Remember earlier in the story about how I had two favorite Texas Rangers managers? Jeff Banister happens to be the other one. If you were to ask me which of the two I enjoyed the most, I would say Banister, because of his fiery personality when arguing bad calls with umpires and defending his players at the same time. The former catcher was born as Jeffery Todd Banister in January 1964, in Oklahoma. Affectionately known as Banny, he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pitates in 1986. Five years later, he would make his MLB debut. Unfortunately, he would only make one plate appearance, recording a hit. He would retire two years later, effectively ending his brief big league career. For nearly three decades, Banister held different positions within the Pirates organization. His only managerial job was with the Texas Rangers, which he was in that role from 2015 to 2018. He was named American League Manager of the Year in 2015. Since 2022, the 61-year-old has been the bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks. One interesting fact was that in both 2015 and 2016, the Rangers won back-to-back American League West titles but lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALDS two consecutive years in a row.

Who are your favorite MLB managers of the last 25 years? If there was a manager or managers that you loved the most that didn't appear on this list, please comment down below. If you enjoyed this story, please give it a like. Make sure you follow me on my socials. Finally, like this story and please leave a generous one-off tip. It'll be found at the end of this story. Big or small, your tips will support creators like me so we can keep publishing new stories and share them with everyone.