This article is about the award presented by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. For the award presented by The Sporting News, see
Sporting News Manager of the Year Award.
In
Major League Baseball, the Manager of the Year Award is an honor given annually since 1983 to two outstanding
managers, one each in the
American League (AL) and the
National League (NL). The winner is voted on by 30 members of the
Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). Each submits a vote for first, second, and third place among the managers of each league.[a] The manager with the highest score in each league wins the award.[1]
Several managers have won the award in a season in which they led their team to
100 or more wins. They are:
In 1991,
Bobby Cox became the first manager to win the award in both leagues, winning with the
Atlanta Braves and having previously won with the
Toronto Blue Jays in 1985.[13] La Russa, Piniella, Showalter,
Jim Leyland, Bob Melvin, Davey Johnson, and
Joe Maddon have since won the award in both leagues.[2][6][14] Cox, La Russa, and Showalter have won the most awards, with four.[6][13] Baker, Leyland, Piniella, Maddon, Melvin,[15] and Terry Francona have won three times.[2][7][14] In 2005, Cox became the first manager to win the award in consecutive years.[13] Cash became the second manager in 2021, and first in the AL, to win the award in consecutive years.[16]Brandon Hyde and
Skip Schumaker are the most recent winners.
Because of the
1994–95 Major League Baseball strike cut the season short and canceled the post-season, the BBWAA writers effectively created a de factomythical national championship (similar to college football) by naming managers of the unofficial league champions (lead the leagues in winning percentage) (
Buck Showalter and
Felipe Alou) as Managers of the Year.[17][18] The
Chicago White Sox have seen five managers win the award, most in the majors, while one franchise, the
Milwaukee Brewers, has not had a manager win the award.
Only five managers have won the award while leading a team that finished outside the top two spots in its division.
Buck Rodgers was the first, winning the award in 1987 with the third-place Expos.[19]Tony Peña and Showalter won the award with third-place teams in back-to-back years: Peña with the Royals in 2003, and Showalter with the Rangers in 2004.[20][21]Joe Girardi is the only manager to win the award with a fourth-place team (2006
Florida Marlins);[22] he is also the only manager to win the award after fielding a team with a losing record.
a The formula used to calculate the final scores is Score = 5F + 3S + T, where F is the number of first-place votes, S is second -place votes, and T is third-place votes.[23][24]