Oakland’s Melvin, Atlanta’s Snitker named top managers
Bob Melvin won his third Manager of the
Year award, taking this year’s American League honor after leading the Oakland Athletics to the playoffs despite the lowest opening-day payroll in the major leagues.
Atlanta’s Brian Snitker won the National League award following a surprising first-place finish, a reward for a 63-yearold who has spent 42 seasons with the Braves in various roles.
Melvin received 18 first-place votes, 19 seconds and one third for 121 points from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He is the eighth manager to win three or more times and is one shy of the record shared by Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa. Melvin previously won with Arizona in 2007 and Oakland in 2012.
His A’s went 97-65, a 22-win improvement over 2017. They lost to the New York Yankees in the AL wild-card game.
Boston’s Alex Cora (79 points) was second, and Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash (57 points) was third.
Snitker received 17 firsts, nine seconds and one third for 116 points, the only manager picked on every NL ballot. Milwaukee’s Craig Counsell (99 points) was second, and Colorado’s Bud Black (41 points) was third.
The Braves went 90-72 and lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a four-game Division Series.
Mariners: Major League Baseball is investigating claims made against Seattle by the team’s recently fired training and conditioning director, who said team management had disparaged Latino players.
The Mariners denied the allegations in a statement following the social media postings from Lorena Martin in which she claimed general manager Jerry Dipoto, manager Scott Servais and director of player development Andy Mckay had called Latino players “lazy, dumb and stupid, especially the Dominicans.”