The Milwaukee Brewers are working to finalize a deal which will promote longtime bench coach Pat Murphy to manager, sources confirmed to ESPN on Tuesday. Murphy will replace Craig Counsell, who left to become manager of the Chicago Cubs last week. The Athletic was first to report the news of Murphy’s impending hire. Murphy, 64, has been the Brewers’ bench coach since 2016. Prior to that, he worked for the San Diego Padres from 2010 to 2015, including a stint as their interim manager that final season. He also was the head coach at Arizona State and at Notre Dame, where he coached Counsell. If Milwaukee hadn’t promoted him, there was a chance Murphy would have followed Counsell to Chicago to be his bench coach there. Instead, he’ll take over a team that won the NL Central in 2023, and has been to the postseason in five of the past six years. He’ll still share a field with Counsell, but only when the teams meet as division rivals in 2024. From 1988 to 1994, Murphy compiled a 318-116-1 record as head coach at Notre Dame. He then moved on to ASU, where he was named Pac-10 coach of the year four times and took the Sun Devils to the College World Series four times. He worked his way up the Padres organization beginning in 2010, before landing in Milwaukee with Counsell.
