Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy won the National League Manager of the Year award Tuesday after an outstanding season that marked his debut with the Brewers, while Cleveland’s Stephen Vogt took American League honors after leading the Guardians. to 92 wins and a division title in his first year as a driver at any level.
Murphy, 65, led the Brewers to the NL Central title with a 93-69 record and is the first franchise manager to win the award since it began in 1983. playoffs, Milwaukee fell to the New York Mets in a three-game wild card series.
Murphy followed an unlikely career path to major league success, serving as a longtime college coach at Notre Dame and Arizona State before moving to the pros in 2010. He worked in the Padres’ minor league system until 2015, when He was hired as Milwaukee’s bench coach under Craig Counsell, who played for Murphy at Notre Dame.
Counsell left for the Cubs during the offseason, and the Brewers quickly turned to Murphy. The transition was almost perfect.
Murphy beat Mike Shildt of San Diego and Venezuelan Carlos Mendoza of New York. He received 27 of 30 first-place votes in the Baseball Writers’ Association of North America (BBWAA) voting. Shildt, Mendoza and Rob Thomson of Philadelphia each received one vote.
Vogt, 40, beat Kansas City’s Matt Quatraro and Detroit’s AJ Hinch, both AL Central rivals. He is the first Young Circuit manager to win the award in his debut season since Rocco Baldelli did so in 2019 with Minnesota. He is also the first to go from player to Manager of the Year in just two years.
The previous quarterback who had achieved it the fastest was Joe Girardi, from 2003 to 2006, when he won the NL Manager of the Year with the Florida Marlins.
Vogt received 27 of the 30 first-place votes. Quatraro got two and Hinch one.
Vogt led the Guardians to a 92-69 record and the playoffs in his first season after replacing three-time Manager of the Year Terry Francona. The former major league catcher led Cleveland to the ALCS before losing to the Yankees in five games.
Vogt is the third Cleveland manager to win the honor, joining Francona (2013, 2016, 2022) and Eric Wedge (2007).
In his first year leading the Mets, Mendoza led the franchise to an 89-win season and an appearance in the National Championship Series, where they were eliminated in six games by the eventual World Series champion Dodgers.
Shildt led the Padres to the playoffs in his first season in San Diego. He won 93 games.
He had won the Manager of the Year award in 2019 when he was in charge of the Cardinals.
Quatraro, 51, in his second season with the franchise, led the Royals to the postseason a year after a 106-loss season. Kansas City finished with an 86-76 record before beating Baltimore in a wild card series.
Kansas City, led by Venezuelan catcher Salvador Pérez and young shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., lost to the Yankees in a four-game division series.
Hinch, 50 and in his fourth season leading the Tigers, also made the playoffs with a red-hot second half of the season despite losing quality players like right-hander Jack Flaherty at the trade deadline.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
