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Major League Baseball’s award season is finally upon us, and you’ll recognize many of the Manager of the Year finalists. Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy is vying for his third straight victory, while Atlanta’s Walt Weiss and Philadelphia’s Don Mattingly hope to pull off the upset.
Things are slightly more interesting in the American League, with the White Sox’ Will Venable as the heavy frontrunner to take home the award. But will the Red Sox’ Chad Tracy or the Rays’ Kevin Cash surprise us and leave Venable in the dust?
Ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, here are our predictions on who will win Manager of the Year.
Tracy, a longtime Minor League manager for the Angels and Red Sox, had never served on a big-league staff entering the 2026 season. He nonetheless received the call in April, replacing embattled manager Alex Cora following a 10-17 start. Fans understandably questioned who he was, and some media outlets even confused him with the ex-Diamondbacks infielder of the same name.
By summer, the baseball world knew this Tracy, who went 77-58 as the Red Sox’s interim manager. Led by Sonny Gray’s resurgent season and an impressive young core, Boston had a 15-game winning streak in July and had no problems securing the AL’s No. 5 seed.
The team removed Tracy’s interim tag in September and gave him a three-year deal with a 2030 option.
We’ve been hard on Cash for his in-game strategic adjustments, especially his reliance on platoon data and pitch-count limits rather than trusting his gut. You would think someone who just finished his 11th year as the Rays’ manager would show better judgment, but maybe that’s why he’d historically struggled in the playoffs before this year.
The low-budget Rays went 98-64 — a 21-game improvement from last year — and won their first AL East title since 2021. Voting concludes immediately after the regular season, so Tampa Bay’s World Series run is irrelevant here. Cash has his flaws, but he’s more than deserving of being a finalist.
Venable and the 2026 White Sox became the first team to win 70 games after consecutive 100-loss seasons. Then they won their 75th game, then their 80th, then their 81st, 82nd and so on. The South Siders finished 84-78 and, despite a near-September collapse, hung on for their first playoff berth since 2021.
The timetable feels like something you’d expect ChatGPT to create, but those in Chicago saw the magic firsthand. Our question: How aggressive will the White Sox be in trying to add another starting pitcher, especially ahead of the likely work stoppage?
This was an extremely weak year in the American League, so we have no qualms with the three finalists. You could try to sway us on Cleveland’s Stephen Vogt, but claiming he was “snubbed” is a step too far, even if we’re not Cash’s biggest fans.
Would Aaron Boone have been a finalist had the Yankees overtaken Tampa Bay in the AL East? Maybe, though Cash always had the underdog narrative working in his favor.
Common sense suggests Venable will earn all 30 first-place votes, but that’s giving the BBWAA too much credit. He realistically should have secured the victory when Chicago hit the 70-win mark, if only because the White Sox lost an MLB-record 121 games only two years ago.
We’re sure that Cash will receive a first-place vote for the Rays’ 98 wins and AL East title, and said voters will likely also cite their budget. We’ve heard it all before.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A team fresh off a postseason appearance fires its manager in April, then watches the interim guide them back to the playoffs and earn the full-time position along the way.
Mattingly went 79-55 after replacing Rob Thomson at the end of April, and the Phillies barely survived a dreadful September. That said, we weren’t overly inspired watching them during their Wild Card Series loss to the rival Braves, and we’ll see whether that’s a sign of things to come for 2027. But as we noted earlier, Manager of the Year voting applies only to the regular season.
What else is there to say about Murphy, who just led the Brewers to their first World Series title? Milwaukee finished a league-best 103-59 despite a below-average payroll and playing in a loaded National League.
Murphy has an opportunity to win his third consecutive NL Manager of the Year Award, a feat not yet achieved in the award’s 45-year history. He would also become the ninth manager in league history to win the award three times.
Weiss went 238-365 while managing the Rockies from 2013-16, so this year must have been an excellent change of pace. Atlanta finished 94-68 for its seventh NL East crown since the start of 2018, and the ex-Braves shortstop immediately proved he was the right man to replace Brian Snitker.
Atlanta engineered a 19-win turnaround despite underwhelming seasons from Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr. and whoever played shortstop that night. But should Weiss have joined Mattingly and Murphy among the finalists?
Honestly? We count three managers — Pittsburgh’s Don Kelly, San Diego’s Craig Stammen and Washington’s Blake Butera — who could have easily warranted Weiss’ spot, and that’s no disrespect to the Braves’ first-year manager.
Kelly led the Pirates to their first winning record since 2018 in spite of Paul Skenes’ immensely disappointing season. Stammen kept an inconsistent, veteran-heavy Padres team on track to earn the NL’s top Wild Card seed.
Then, there’s Butera, who we infamously predicted would lose at least 110 games in his first season. Washington instead went 77-86 — their most wins since the 2019 World Series team — and avoided a widely expected fire sale.
Would any of those three have won NL Manager of the Year? Probably not, but they nonetheless deserved some recognition.
We hope we don’t need to explain this too much. When you lead the league in victories and easily cross the 100-win threshold, you’re typically already the frontrunner to earn Manager of the Year. But then when you factor in the Brewers’ 19th-ranked payroll and how dominant they looked all season … yeah, this one was easy.
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