DUNEDIN, Fla. — John Schneider saw the news about Pat Murphy’s extension as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers and fired off a text. The two go back more than a decade, to their days managing against each other with Vancouver and Eugene in the Northwest League, and congrats for the two-time National League Manager of the Year were in order.
“Murph is a hell of a manager,” his Toronto Blue Jays counterpart said Friday. “I was thrilled for him and he got right back to me.”
Tacking on two years after this one plus a club option, Murphy’s extension added $8.95 million in new money to place him among the game’s top-paid managers, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported. Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers heads that list at $8.1 million a year, just ahead of Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell’s $8 million, but there’s a wide disparity between the top and bottom ends of the scale among the 30 managers.
It’s a market that’s evolving, too, underlined by the San Francisco Giants luring Tony Vitello from the University of Tennessee for $3.5 million annually over three years plus a vesting option for a fourth year, according to John Shea of the San Francisco Standard.
That’s well above what a first-time manager usually gets and all of that is pertinent for Schneider, who, like Murphy, had been on an expiring contract.
Back on Nov. 6, Ross Atkins said the two were “talking about the potential of that being longer.”
With president and CEO Mark Shapiro receiving a five-year extension in December and the winter’s heavy lifting done, the next order of operations is for Schneider and the Blue Jays GM, who is also up after this season, to get new deals, too.
“We’re talking,” said Schneider. “I know Ross said that at the end of the season and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be and I know that I’m a small cog in the whole operation. They know how I feel. We’ve had some discussions about it and if there’s a way to do it for both sides that makes sense, that’d be great. I’m really just focused on right here, right now and how we’re going to continue to get better. We’ll continue to talk and there’s no place I’d rather be than with this group.”
The Blue Jays clearly value Schneider, as they quietly exercised his 2026 option last spring, months before the World Series run, even if they didn’t acknowledge it until Atkins said in November it had been picked up.
Since taking over for the fired Charlie Montoyo on July 12, 2022, Schneider has led the Blue Jays to a 303-257 mark and three post-season appearances, all while helping to establish a club identity employed so well throughout a remarkable 2025, when he finished second in AL Manager of the Year voting.
All that led Atkins to praise Schneider’s work in November as “unbelievable,” and describe him as “a clear leader in this organization, really, really good at his job.”
The onus is now on the Blue Jays to reward him as such, with Murphy’s extension the latest input to a market beginning to compensate managers more commensurately to their value.
“I think (Murphy’s extension) sets the precedent a little bit for guys that have been doing it for X amount of years and guys that had X amount of success or recognition,” said Schneider. “That’s a good thing. Everyone should be looking to get what they’re worth, if you will.
“I always kind of bucket managers kind of like you do players,” he continued. “There are guys in our division or our league, Booney (Aaron Boone) and AC (Alex Cora) and AJ (Hinch) and Kevin Cash, they’ve been doing it for a long time and they’re in a different bucket than most, and you want to see where you fit in.”
