Explaining my NL Manager of the Year Award ballot

Voting for the annual Baseball Writers' Association of America awards is hardly easy. There is a lot of pressure when filling out your ballot because of the pedigree and history that are attached to the awards.

If there was an “easy” one of the four, it would probably be Manager of the Year.

When it comes down to Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and Most Valuable Player, there are so many statistics that can be used to compare and contrast the candidates. It sometimes comes down to which ones the voters value more, and that often changes (i.e. the emergence of sabermetric numbers over the last decade).

But for Manager of the Year, there is really only one stat that matters: Record. Then that is often balanced against a team’s expectations coming into the season and any hardships they had to endure (roster changes, injuries, prolonged slumps, etc.).

Voters also take a team’s talent level into consideration. Dave Roberts may never win another Manager of the Year award because the Dodgers are always loaded with MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year candidates with World Series-or-bust aspirations.

This year there were three obvious candidates for National League Manager of the Year. Brewers manager Pat Murphy was announced as the winner last night after receiving 27 of the 30 first-place votes. Padres skipper Mike Shildt and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza came in as the runners-up.

Those were the three finalists I had on my ballot and in that order. Another perfect 3-for-3 in my second year of voting for a BBWAA award after submitting a ballot for Rookie of the Year last year.

A reminder that all BBWAA award ballots are submitted before the start of the postseason. So nothing that happened in October played a factor. Not the Brewers getting bounced in the Wild Card Series. Not the Padres’ collapse against the eventual champion Dodgers in the Division Series. And not the Mets’ run all the way to the Championship Series.

In his first year at the helm in Milwaukee, Murphy led the Brewers to their second straight NL Central championship and third in four years. There were a lot of question marks surrounding the division coming into the season, but the Brew Crew cruised to the title by becoming the only division champion to win by double-digit games as they finished 10 games better than the Cubs and Cardinals.

Who would have thought the Brewers would even be in contention in the Central after they …

* Watched Craig Counsell, the most successful manager in franchise history, depart for the division-rival Cubs
* Traded ace Corbin Burnes to the Orioles in the offseason
* Lost fellow ace Brandon Woodruff for the season following offseason shoulder surgery
* Also lost Christian Yelich and Devin Williams for months at time due to back injuries

Many thought this year would be a major setback for Milwaukee. Instead, Murphy led the Brewers to their sixth playoff appearance in the last seven years.

That helped him accomplish something that not even Counsell did: Win the first Manager of the Year award in Brewers history.

Shildt and Mendoza had strong cases, too. 

In San Diego, Shildt, who won the award with the Cardinals in 2019, was hired to help the Padres after their stacked roster only finished two games above .500 in 2023. And like he did five years ago in St. Louis, he got the best out of his team.

The Padres finished 93-69 to reach 90 wins for the first time since 2010 and have their best winning percentage in a non-pandemic year since they went to the World Series in 1998. It was their second-best year in a 162-game season in franchise history.

Shildt led the Padres to clinch the first NL Wild Card spot by four games over the Braves, Mets and Diamondbacks. They even narrowed the gap with the dominant Dodgers in the NL West to two games late in the season by going 34-18 in August and September.

Unfortunately for the Nationals, the Padres’ season really turned around with a three-game sweep of Washington at Petco Park in June. The Padres entered that series right at .500 with a 41-41 record. With those three wins and then three more at Nationals Park in July, the Padres went 52-28 over the rest of the season, good for a .650 winning percentage and a 105-win pace over 162 games.

It was an historic season for the Padres in their first year under Shildt. But while he clearly did an excellent job, it was also clear that this team was very good to begin with and they didn’t have to go through as many roster changes as the Brewers.

Meanwhile, Mendoza led the Mets to just their second postseason appearance in the last eight years in his first season as the headman. Although there was a three-way tie for the last two Wild Card spots, the Mets were able to clinch their berth by winning the first game of a makeup doubleheader in Atlanta on the Monday after the regular season ended.

That was the story for the 2024 Mets: Never say die. It took them a week to earn their first win of the year. They were 11 games under .500, 16 ½ games back in the NL East and five games back of the last Wild Card spot on June 2.

But from that point on they went 65-38 for a .631 winning percentage and a 102-win pace over 162 games to get into the playoffs. Along with that, they went a major league-best 28-16 in one-run games and had 41 comeback victories.

There are parallels between the 2024 Mets and the 2019 Nats, who famously rebounded from a 19-31 start. Most notably was the fact that both teams had rosters loaded with talent that were not playing up to their potential. Davey Martinez wasn’t even a finalist for Manager of the Year in 2019 despite taking that team to the postseason.

So while Mendoza did land on my ballot after going through a lot of turmoil this year, the Mets were supposed to be this good while being led by MVP finalist Francisco Lindor. The Brewers finished better with much lower expectations coming into the season.

Therefore, Murphy was my Manager of the Year, and most of my fellow BBWAA voters agreed to name him the winner.