NL Manager of the Year is Giants’ Kapler; Rays’ Cash is AL pick
Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash became the second skipper to win Manager of the Year honors in back-to-back seasons, taking the American League award Tuesday night.
San Francisco’s Gabe Kapler won the NL honor.
Cash led the low-payroll Rays to a second consecutive AL East crown. Tampa Bay (100-62) finished with the AL’s best record before losing to Boston in the Division Series.
Bobby Cox had been the only person to win Manager of the Year two straight seasons, doing it with Atlanta in 2004-05.
The Rays made it to the World Series in 2020, but Cash came under criticism for removing starting pitcher Blake Snell in the final game. But if anything, quick hooks like that were a fairly normal strategy in this year’s postseason —
Cash
Kapler
perhaps another example of Cash and Tampa Bay being ahead of the curve on new ways to approach the game.
Seattle’s Scott Servais finished second behind Cash in the voting by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Houston’s Dusty Baker was third.
Charlie Montoyo of the Blue Jays was fourth, followed by Alex Cora of the Red Sox, Tony La Russa of the White Sox and A.J. Hinch of the Tigers.
Cash received 19 of the 30 first-place votes.
Kapler won the NL award after guiding San Francisco to a franchise-best 107 victories in his second season with the Giants. He beat out Craig Counsell of the Milwaukee
Brewers and Mike Shildt of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Kapler managed two seasons in Philadelphia before being fired. The Giants hired him after Bruce Bochy’s retirement. Kapler had both big shoes to fill -- Bochy won three championships with San Francisco — and a struggling team to take over. When the Giants went 29-31 in the pandemicshortened 2020 season, it was their fourth straight losing record.
Then, in a year when the star-laden Dodgers and Padres were supposed to compete for NL West supremacy, San Francisco surged to the best record in baseball. The Giants beat out the Dodgers by a game for the division crown, although they lost to Los Angeles in a tightly contested Division Series.
Counsell finished second after leading the Brewers to the NL Central title. Shildt was third — a month after he was fired over what Cardinals president John Mozeliak described as philosophical differences.
Brian Snitker of the World Series champion Braves and Dave Roberts of the Dodgers were the other managers to receive votes. Kapler received 28 of the 30 firstplace votes, which were cast before the playoffs began,
Lawsuit: Indians will be the Guardians
Cleveland will have two teams called the Guardians.
The Major League Baseball franchise and a local roller derby club have reached a resolution in a lawsuit filed over the use of the name Guardians, allowing both to continue using it.
The sides on Tuesday jointly announced an “amicable resolution,” an agreement that permits the Indians to continue their changeover to Guardians — a switch that was delayed due to the legal matter and isn’t completely finished.
No other terms of the agreement were disclosed.
The legal scuffle was another hurdle in a long route to the official name change for the Indians, whose decision to drop Indians angered some fans and alienated others. The American League team has been known as the Indians since 1915.
Next season, they’ll be the Guardians, a name chosen following a yearlong process that sprang from a national reckoning over racist names and symbols.
Blue Jays, Berrios reach $131M deal
The Toronto Blue Jays have reached an agreement with pitcher Jose Berríos to a seven-year $131 million deal pending a physical, a person familiar with the the matter told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The Blue Jays won the pursuit for pitcher Berríos at the July trade deadline by acquiring the right-hander from the Minnesota Twins and he’ll join the team if the physical checks out. Berrios went 5-4 with a 3.58 ERA in 12 starts with Toronto. The 27-year-old Berríos was Minnesota’s unquestioned ace, a two-time All-Star who has been as durable as any pitcher in the game.
Former Angel Kendrick joins Phillies office
Longtime major league infielder Howie Kendrick has joined the Philadelphia Phillies as special assistant to general manager Sam Fuld.
Kendrick, 38, retired after the 2020 season following a 15-year playing career with the Los Angeles Angels (2006-2014), Los Angeles Dodgers (2015-16), Phillies (2017) and Washington Nationals (2017-20).