Showalter wins 4th MOY award with 4th franchise
- Sports reporter, Kansas City Star, 2002-09
- Writer, Baseball, Baseball Prospectus
- Co-author, Pro Basketball Prospectus
- Member, Baseball Writers Association of America
- Member, Professional Basketball Writers Association
The New York Mets’ Buck Showalter was named National League Manager of the Year on Tuesday night, becoming just the third person to win a fourth award and the first to win with four different franchises.
Showalter, the first Mets manager to win the award, received eight of 30 first-place votes, 10 second-place votes and 77 total points, edging Los Angeles Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts, who finished second. Roberts also earned eight-first-place votes but had just four second-place votes for 57 points. Atlanta’s Brian Snitker, who won the award in 2018, finished third with 55 points. He received seven first-place votes.
The voting was done by a Baseball Writers’ Association of America panel and conducted before the postseason.
Showalter, 66, has now won Manager of the Year in four different decades, his previous awards coming with the New York Yankees (1994), Texas Rangers (2004) and Baltimore Orioles (2014). The other four-time winners are Hall of Famers Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa.
“The game has changed,” Showalter said of his four awards in four decades. “But in a lot of ways it’s stayed the same.”
Under Showalter, the Mets made the postseason for the first time since 2016, losing in the wild-card round to the San Diego Padres.
After three seasons away from the dugout, Showalter led New York to 101 wins, the most of any team he’s managed over 21 seasons. The 101 wins were also the Mets’ highest total since the club won 108 games in 1986. New York finished in a first-place tie with the Braves in the NL East, though the Braves won the division crown on the head-to-head tiebreaker.
Five different managers received multiple first-place votes — Showalter (8), Roberts (8), Snitker (7), Oliver Marmol of the St. Louis Cardinals (5) and the Philadelphia Phillies’ Rob Thomson (2).
Roberts, 50, guided the Dodgers to a franchise-record 111 wins, a high-water mark for an organization that has made the postseason in each of Roberts’ seven seasons in the dugout, including six NL West titles.
Roberts, who was named NL Manager of the Year in 2016, owns a career .632 regular-season winning percentage. That’s the highest percentage all-time among managers from one of baseball’s extant leagues.
Only Bullet Rogan, Vic Harris and Rube Foster, all of whom managed in the Negro Leagues, own higher lifetime winning percentages.
Snitker, 67, has gone from a career coach and minor league manager to a fixture atop annual NL Manager of the Year voting.
The Braves’ 101 wins in 2022 were their most during Snitker’s six-plus seasons with the franchise for which he’s worked since 1977. Atlanta extended its streak of NL East titles to five.
The last two seasons have seen Snitker help Atlanta withstand disappointing starts only to catch fire late in the season. In 2021, the Braves’ late-season hot streak culminated in a World Series championship.
The Braves didn’t get that far in 2022, losing in the NLDS to a red-hot Phillies team. Still, Atlanta trailed the Mets in the division race by seven games on Aug. 10 before coming all the way back to win the division.
Snitker has finished in the top four in NL Manger of the Year balloting in five straight seasons.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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