Who will be the Managers of the Year? Here, your arguments

There’s more to being a good manager than knowing when to call on your bullpen in a pinch or ordering a hit-and-run play in the seventh inning. That’s part of the job, of course, but the role is also about creating and maintaining relationships. Or to push the right buttons when injuries inevitably strike. It’s about having the tools to handle more than two dozen different personalities in the clubhouse and make them form a true team with a common goal: Win.

Each of these six managers did just that in 2022, making them finalists for Manager of the Year in their respective leagues.

Here, we leave you with the argument in favor of each of the six nominees. The winners will be revealed today at 6 pm ET on the MLB Network.

Terry Francona, Guardians

Quantifying a manager’s impact on their team over the course of a season can be a difficult task, but for the Guardians in 2022, it was rare that a week went by without one of their players not giving Francona credit for the success of the ninth

It was not a roster that allowed many wins to be projected. Francona, however, knew that Cleveland could rack up wins if it could dominate so-called small baseball. Although that plan of attack is less appealing than trying to hit home runs–which has become so common today–Francona spoke with his leaders, Dominicans José Ramírez and Amed Rosario, and asked them to lead by example and spread the message that running the bases well and defending also wins games. From the first weeks of the season, his roster got the message. The lineup collectively hit the second fewest home runs in the majors (127, trailing only the Tigers), but finished sixth in batting average (.254) and had the lowest strikeout percentage (18.2%). ).

While finding ways to win with the tools at hand, Francona also had to deal with continuing to keep his players — the youngest roster in baseball — growing as players while also finding a way to win the division title. . The club tied a franchise record (excluding 1901) with 17 debutants in a season, and lack of experience was no obstacle to winning 92 games. Only two other teams had at least 17 players making their 2022 debut: The Athletics (who went 60-102) and the Cubs (74-88). — Mandy Bell

No AL manager has won this award with a team that finished lower than third in its division. It only happened once, when Joe Girardi was NL Manager of the Year in 2006 in charge of the Marlins who went 78-84.

But there should be no complaints if Hyde wins the honor this season. After all, no one expected the Orioles to go 83-79 in the tough AL East, where they finished fourth.

During Hyde’s first three seasons, Baltimore went 131-218 while dealing with a rebuilding club. That included 108 losses in his first year as manager in 2019 and 110 losses in 2021.

Before the 2022 season began, PECOTA’s Baseball Prospects projections had the Orioles winning just 61 games this year. FanGraphs gave them just a 0.1% chance of making the postseason, the lowest among MLB’s 30 teams.

But still, Baltimore wasn’t eliminated from the AL Wild Card race until September 30, five days before the end of the regular season. The Orioles finished just three games behind the Rays in the fight for the last ticket in October.

Hyde, already named The Sporting News’ AL Manager of the Year, did a tremendous job leading a team full of young players to success no one could have predicted. In fact, the Orioles became just the second team in AL/NL history to finish with a record of .500 or better after losing 110 or more games. The other? The Perfectos of San Luis in 1899. — jake rill

Under Servais, the Mariners won 90 games for the second straight year, joining Lou Piniella as the only managers in franchise history to accomplish the feat. But it really was the way Servais led the Mariners that proved most impressive. Seattle, for the second year in a row, had great success winning close games, racking up 13 layoff wins (tied the franchise record) and 40 comebacks (third in the AL). In addition, he played 11-5 in extra innings, the best win-loss percentage in the Young Circuit in that sense.

For an award that’s so difficult to analyze statistically, these numbers underscore how Servais handled his roster — particularly the bullpen — late in games. The Mariners didn’t run over their opponents, so the path to success required more tactics from their manager than most clubs.

After a slow start, with the Mariners 10 games under .500 on June 19 and the season spiraling out of control, Seattle was 61-33 the rest of the way, a .649 winning percentage that was second-best in the American in that period. It also included a 14-win streak from July 2-17.

Servais finished second last year, behind the Rays’ Kevin Cash. After another solid season, he deserves the honor this time. — daniel kramer

The argument Roberts would have against it is that the Dodgers were already expected to be among the best teams in the majors. But it’s also important to remember that only four other clubs have won the same number of games during the regular season as the Dodgers did in 2022 with Roberts at the helm.

The Dodgers (and Roberts) benefited from a roster brimming with talent, but the 2022 blue squad had to deal with injuries to key players such as Walker Buehler, Blake Treinen, Tony Gonsolin and Clayton Kershaw. It wasn’t always easy, but despite that, the Dodgers finished with the best record in the majors. — Juan Toribio

For a team that lacked stability and consistency despite boasting talented rosters in recent seasons, Showalter was the antidote. Immediately after signing him, the veteran manager began making changes to the way the Mets ran his business, from on-field workouts to the types of people employed in the organization. The result was the second most successful season in franchise history: Showalter improved the Mets from a 77-win team in 2021 to a 101-win club this year. Among major league teams, only the Orioles had a more dramatic improvement.

Showalter has two counterarguments. One, much of this year’s success must also be attributed to club owner Steve Cohen (for approving a massive payroll increase) and general manager Billy Eppler (for acquiring the right players to engineer New York’s renaissance). ). Two, Showalter’s Mets slumped down the stretch, finishing second in the NL East despite leading the division for most of the summer. That proved to be his undoing when they were subsequently eliminated in the Wild Card Round by the Padres.

However, the Manager of the Year Award is an accolade that is solely based on the regular season, and Showalter did what any fan could ask of his team in his first summer in charge in Queens, helping the Mets pull through despite dealing with injuries to Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer. The manager also created a new standard of professionalism in Flushing that should continue to be the foundation for seasons to come. Under Showalter’s constant hand, the Mets hope to continue making noise year after year. — Anthony DiComo

Snitker has enjoyed each of the Braves’ last five division titles, but the most satisfying was the most recent. The Braves entered June 10.5 games out of first place in the NL East and were within seven of the leading Mets as late as Aug. 10. But Snitker’s steady hand kept the ship afloat, and his team rewarded him with an incredible comeback in the final four months of the campaign.

The Braves had the best record in MLB at 78-34 as of June 1 through the end of the season. That translates into a stride of 112 wins in a stretch of 162 games. With this torrid resurgence, the Braves caught up with the Mets, who were led by Buck Showalter, one of three candidates this year for National League Manager of the Year.

Showalter led the Mets to win 101 games while benefiting from the most expensive roster in baseball. The Braves spent about $80 million less than the Mets this year, but in the end they proved to be a better team. Atlanta lost four of five games to New York in early August. But the Braves didn’t let up and ended up sweeping the Mets in a three-game series on the final weekend of the regular season.

That sweep ended up being the key to Atlanta taking the East title, which they clinched despite the fact that Ozzie Albies missed more than half the season and Adam Duvall suffered a wrist injury that ended the season. his campaign at the end of July. Ronald Acuna Jr. never got back to his level during his first season back from major knee surgery, while Ian Anderson spent most of the final two months of the season in Triple-A. But led by Snitker, Atlanta celebrated yet another division title. — Mark Bowman