Molitor, Lovullo take honors
Voters swayed by turnarounds; Hinch places 3rd in AL balloting
Paul Molitor and Torey Lovullo presided over turnaround seasons, guided their teams into the playoffs, and won Manager of the Year awards by wide margins.
The paths they took were totally different.
Molitor needed a clubhouse talk to calm down the Minnesota Twins, his players angered by moves the front office made at the July 31 trade deadline.
“I still believed,” Molitor said Tuesday, recalling how he helped his team overcome “that speed bump.”
No such distractions in the desert.
In his first full season as a skipper, Lovullo built a culture of communication with the Arizona Diamondbacks. He often referred to the “love” teammates had for each other — and Lovullo certainly loved the midseason deal that brought big-hitting J.D. Martinez to the Dbacks.
“We are going to be one year better,” he said, adding his club would be even “more united” in 2018.
Molitor won the American League Manager of the Year award after the Twins became the first team to make the playoffs following a 100-loss season. Her drew 18 of the 30 first-place votes in the balloting, completed before the start of the playoffs, by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Astros manager A.J. Hinch finished third in the AL voting, receiving one first-place vote and 12 second-place votes. Cleveland’s Terry Francona was second and got the other 11 first-place votes.
Hinch led the Astros to 101 wins — 17 more than their 2016 total and one shy of the franchise record set in 1998 — and their first division title since 2001 en route to their first World Series championship. This was his second time as a finalist for the award in his three seasons with the As- tros. He placed second in 2015 behind Jeff Banister of the Rangers.
Lovullo also got 18 firstplace votes in earning the National League prize. Dave Roberts of the Dodgers was second, and Colorado’s Bud Black was third.
Molitor joined Frank Robinson as the only Hall of Fame players to win a Manager of the Year award, first presented in 1983.
“I was aware of some of the history,” Molitor said.
The Twins went 85-77 and captured their first playoff spot since 2010 before losing to the Yankees in the AL Wild Card Game. Last year, the Twins led the majors with 103 losses.
Brian Dozier, Joe Mauer and their Minnesota teammates were in the midst of a 5-13 slide when the Twins traded closer Brandon Kintzler to Washington for a minor leaguer less than a month after he made the All-Star team. They also dealt Jaime Garcia after he won his only start since they got him from Atlanta.
Molitor’s message to the Twins at that point was “not magical,” he said. Instead, it was fairly simple and straightforward: Believe in yourselves.
“I still had a lot of optimism,” said Molitor, 61, who was born and raised in St. Paul, Minn., and got the last of his 3,319 career hits with the Twins in 1998.
Shortly after the playoff loss, Molitor got a new three-year contract to continue managing the Twins.
Lovullo, 52, guided Arizona to a 93-69 record — a year after it went 69-93 — and its first playoff spot since 2011.