Melvin, not Cora, AL Manager of Year
The most ambiguous award in baseball was handed out on last night, and though Alex Cora led the Red Sox to one of the best seasons in baseball history, he was not named the American League Manager of the Year.
Instead, Oakland A’s manager Bob Melvin took home the award for the third time.
By leading an injury plagued A’s team with a $66 million Opening Day payroll to a 97-win season, an increase of 22 from 2017, Melvin joined Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, Jim Leyland, Lou Piniella, Dusty Baker, Buck Showalter and Joe Maddon as the only managers ever to win the award three times. La Russa and Cox are the only managers with four wins since the award was introduced in 1983.
Melvin finished with 18 first-place votes out of a possible 30. He also had 10 second-place votes and one third-place vote. Cora had seven first-place votes, 11 second-place votes and 11 third-place votes while Rays manager Kevin Cash finished third with five firsts, six seconds and 14 thirds.
“All three of the guys up for this award were deserving of it,” Melvin said.
It’s always important to remember that the Manager of the Year is voted on before the playoffs start.
Had the 30 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America known Cora would hit on almost every bold decision while maneuvering a questionable bullpen through three of the best offenses in baseball during October, the voting might have been different.
Cora impressed in the regular season, too, but bigmarket managers on expensive teams aren’t typically given the accolades. A Red Sox manager hasn’t won since Jimmy Williams in 1999. A Yankees manager hasn’t won since Joe Torre in 1998.
It’s difficult enough to pinpoint exactly how much of an effect a manager has on his ballclub, and even more difficult to do it while covering just one team all season long, as most of the voting writers do. The awards most often go to managers like Melvin, who overachieved with an A’s team that wasn’t expected to be very good.
The A’s used a franchiserecord 15 starting pitchers during the season. Ten of them saw time on the disabled list, most notably Sean Manaea, who pitched a nohitter against the Red Sox in April.
“I think in the beginning, we were a little taken aback that we lost so many guys early on,” Melvin said. “After that, it was more of a badge of honor. Someone goes down and we had to continue to have expectations to win and know we have depth in the organization. It’s next man up.”
Melvin said the A’s were paying attention to the Rays’ strategy of using an “opener” instead of traditional starting pitchers. And with so many injuries, the A’s adopted that strategy midyear.
“We took a hard look at it,” Melvin said. “We’re always trying to be as good as we can possibly be. Based on the fact we had so many starters go down and our bullpen was our strength, we were looking for ways to get better.”
Without consistency in the rotation, the A’s relied on a potent offense. They got 48 homers from Khris Davis and a breakout season from sophomore Matt Chapman at third base as they finished third in the majors with 227 homers while scoring more than five runs per game.
The A’s were 34-36 on June 15 and then went 63-29 to finish the season.
The Red Sox began the year with a $234 million payroll, roared out to a 17-2 start and never lost more than three games in a row on their way to a third straight American League East title. They held the lead from July 2 through the end of the season, winning by eight games and finishing with a franchise-record 108 wins.
In the National League, Atlanta’s Brian Snitker took home the Manager of the Year, edging the Brewers’ Craig Counsell. The young Braves team won the National League East with 90 wins, an increase of 18 from 2017.