Carlos Hernández was behind the plate as Trevor Hoffman closed out the Padres' win over the Braves in Game 3 of the 1998 National League Championship Series. Vince Bucci / Getty Images
Carlos Hernández, a key catcher in the 1998 World Series and a longtime broadcaster for the San Diego Padres, has expressed interest in the team's managerial opening.
"I want to see the San Diego Padres win a championship," Hernández told The Athletic on Monday. "And, man, I got too close. Too close as a player, and even here, too, as a broadcaster. But I want to make it as a manager."
Hernández recently completed his 14th season as the Padres' primary color analyst on Spanish-language television and radio broadcasts. After a decade-long playing career with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Padres and St. Louis Cardinals, the Venezuela native managed the Toros de Tijuana to the Mexican Summer League postseason in 2004. He worked the next three years as a catching coordinator for the Padres, served as Venezuelan winter-ball manager of the Leones del Caracas from 2006 to 2008, and reunited with former Padres general manager Kevin Towers as a catching coordinator for the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2010 to 2013.
That remains the extent of Hernández's professional coaching experience. Still, for well over a decade, his broadcasting career has brought him into regular proximity with Padres players, managers and other employees. His bilingualism, in theory, could help make him an intriguing candidate alongside the likes of Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla and Cardinals great Albert Pujols, who team and league sources said has expressed interest in a position that came open when Mike Shildt resigned this month.
Hernández said he wishes "the best" for Shildt, explaining that the now-former manager treated him as if he "belonged to his organization." Hernández, 58, has more history in the organization than most; his list of former Padres colleagues includes late broadcaster and former New York Yankees infielder Jerry Coleman, who left the booth in 1980 for a memorable if ultimately unsuccessful season as San Diego's manager.
"He always told me, 'Carlos, when are you going to be ready to be a manager? Come on,'" Hernández said of Coleman, who died in 2014. "He always told me he could see something that I didn't see a long time ago."
It was only this year, Hernández said, that he began thinking seriously about exploring the possibility of managing in the majors. As a minor-league instructor and winter-ball manager, he opted to spend more time with his family following a playing career that was ended by years of back issues. More recently, he added, the Padres' successes and continuing lack of a title have reignited a desire to win.
He hopes to forge a path not unlike that of Bob Brenly, another former big leaguer who went the broadcast route -- and later, with the Diamondbacks, became the fourth rookie manager to raise a World Series trophy.
"I want to be a champion in San Diego. I want to be a champion manager," Hernández said. "I (won) as a player. And I don't want to have just the name 'manager.' I want to have the name of a winning manager. ... I don't want to compare myself to somebody else, but I want to do it because I was born to play baseball, man. I come here to play baseball. All my years, all my career that I have in this beautiful country is baseball."
Signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers as a teenager, Hernández in 1990 became the second Venezuelan-born catcher in major-league history, joining Bo Díaz. Hernández earned a reputation as a defensive stalwart, but playing for Tommy Lasorda in Los Angeles, he found himself mostly relegated to backup duty behind Mike Scioscia and Mike Piazza.
He signed a free-agent contract with the Padres after the 1996 season, emerged under manager Bruce Bochy as their lead catcher in 1998, and appeared in all four of their games in that year's World Series, a sweep by the Yankees. An Achilles injury cost Hernández all of 1999. He was traded in 2000, his final season, to St. Louis. There, he played for another prominent manager.
"When I got to San Diego is when I started feeling love for the game again," Hernández said. "I want to be a manager like these guys, because (former Cardinals manager Tony) La Russa and Bochy, they talked to you and said, 'Hey, the job is yours. You lose it if you lose it, but the job is yours.' It's something that players want to hear. It's something that, of course, you want to play for that guy, and one day, everything that I would show and give to the players is what I learned from La Russa and Bruce Bochy."
Hernández said he has stayed engaged in the game by continuing to study and learn from big-league managers and coaches. While calling Padres games with longtime broadcast partner Eduardo Ortega, he anticipates moves he might make if he were in the manager's seat. He believes his journey from Venezuela can facilitate connections with players from disparate backgrounds. Aside from a brief interim stint by Rod Barajas in 2019, the Padres -- who feature Dominican stars Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. -- have not employed a manager of Latin American descent since Preston Gómez, the franchise's first manager, in the early 1970s.
"It's something that I can bring to the players," said Hernández, who hails from the same city in Venezuela as Padres starting catcher Freddy Fermin. "I don't know how to say this, but the best vitamin for me would be every player from Latin America ... making it to the big leagues, man, because I know where we're coming from.
"When you play and feel comfortable and feel good, (players are) going to give you their 100 percent that you're asking for. It's No. 1. You've got to know where they're coming from, if they're American, Japanese, whoever."
Hernández said he had not yet contacted Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller to directly share his interest in the team's opening. He said he would be open to discussing similar aspirations with any other big-league club seeking a manager. For now, he said, San Diego is the only team for which he would consider serving in a non-managerial coaching position.
"And if I have to stay doing my broadcasting, I will stay there," Hernández said.
Some potential and previously reported candidates for the Padres' opening have yet to hear from the team. Club sources said the interview process began Monday with at least bench coach Brian Esposito speaking with team decision-makers. As ESPN first reported, Pujols -- who is no longer considered a candidate for the Los Angeles Angels' manager job -- is scheduled to interview with San Diego on Wednesday. Others who could interview in the near future, if they haven't already, include Niebla and Padres special assistant and former second baseman Mark Loretta.
Hernández, another former Padres player, would like to at least explore the possibilities.
"I'm ready for it. I was not a superstar. I know that," he said. "But I played the game right. This is what I want people to do. ... It's something that I would like to see myself doing."