Rob Manfred will soon be calling it a day.
The MLB commissioner said during a news conference in Tampa on Thursday that he will step down from his post after his term ends in January 2029.
Last July, MLB clubs voted to extend Manfred’s contract.
“You can only have so much fun in one lifetime,” Manfred told reporters. “I have been open with [ the owners] about the fact that this is going to be my last term,” Manfred said. “I said it to them before the election in July and I’m absolutely committed to that.”
Manfred took over as commissioner from Bud Selig in January 2015, and he said he expects the owners will interview a wide slate of contenders to replace him in five years.
“I’m sure the selection process is going to look like it looked the last time,” Manfred said. “There’ll be a committee of owners that’ll be put together and they’ll identify candidates, an interview process and ultimately someone or a slate of people will be put forward.”
Under his polarizing tenure, MLB has gone through rule changes, expanded playoffs and high-profile controversies.
Early on, Manfred put an emphasis on hastening the pace of play, first attempting to curtail hitters from stepping out of the batters’ box during an at-bat and instituting a clock that put a uniform time limit on commercials in between half innings in 2015.
But the most transformative changes came in 2023 when MLB instituted a pitch clock, banned the ubiquitous infield overshift, limited the number of disengagements a pitcher can make during an at-bat and increased the size of bases in an effort to shorten game times while adding more hits and stolen bases.
According to MLB’s numbers, games lasted a tick over two hours and 39 minutes last year, the first time the average was under three hours since the 2015 season.
“The biggest thank you goes to the players,” Manfred told reporters before last year’s All-Star Game in Seattle, according to Baseball America. “I understand how important routines are to players. When you say to a professional athlete, ‘You’ve done this a certain way your whole life and we’re going to change it because we’re going to have a rule change,’ that’s a big deal. Our players, the game’s players, have adjusted quickly and effectively.”
Aside from the rule changes he helped foster in the game, Manfred had to deal with the infamous Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal.
After a 2020 investigation found that the team used an illegal operation to decode and relay opposing teams’ signs to hitters en route to a World Series title, Manfred fined Houston $5 million, suspended manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Lunhow for the 2020 season and docked Houston their first and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021.
However, most controversially, no active players were penalized because of their cooperation with MLB’s investigation.
“[Penalizing individual players would be] difficult because virtually all of the Astros’ players had some involvement or knowledge of the scheme,” Manfred wrote in his report, “and I am not in a position based on the investigative record to determine with any degree of certainty every player who should be held accountable, or their relative degree of culpability.”
MLB is now dealing with the A’s potential move to Las Vegas, which the club hopes to do so by 2028.
The team, which has gotten plenty of pushback from the Oakland fanbase, received approval for the move by MLB in November.
Manfred added Thursday that he hopes the A’s and Rays, who are also looking to get a new stadium in St. Petersburg, have their respective issues resolved by the time he is done.
“I hope that I’m here to go to opening day as commissioner for both Tampa Bay and Las Vegas,” Manfred said.
