Matt Williams, Buck Showalter win Manager of the Year awards
They didn’t get the ultimate prize, the World Series trophy, but Matt Williams of the Washington Nationals and Buck Showalter of the Baltimore Orioles were honored for their 2014 efforts Tuesday with Manager of the Year awards.
In the National League, Williams earned 18 of the 30 first-place votes as cast by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Clint Hurdle of the Pittsburgh Pirates finished second with eight first-place votes and Bruce Bochy of the San Francisco Giants was third with three first-place votes. Mike Redmond of the Miami Marlins also earned a first-place vote, but finished fifth overall.
Williams is now the fourth rookie manager to win the award, the first since Joe Girardi in 2006.
In the American League, Showalter received 25 first-place votes. After him, Mike Scioscia finished second with four first-place votes and Ned Yost finished third. Lloyd McClendon of the Seattle Mariners received the final first-place vote.
Here’s a bit of trivia: Showalter has won this award three times — in 1994, 2004 and now 2014.
In both cases, the newly crowned Manager of the Year winners ran away with their divisions. The Orioles won the AL East by 12 games and the Nats won the NL East by 17 games. Those were the largest margins in all of MLB.
The postseason didn’t end as either hoped — the Nats lost in the NLDS to the Giants, and the Orioles lost in the ALCS to the Royals — but this award is based solely on regular-season performance.
Showalter gets credit for withstanding season-ending injuries to key players Manny Machado and Matt Wieters, while also getting the most out of a starting pitching rotation with no true ace. The Orioles play in a tough division, one that’s usually among the tightest in baseball, but the Orioles ran away with it. The Orioles’ 96 wins were their most since 1997. That was also the last time they won the AL East.
In D.C., Williams inherited a good roster that had underachieved in 2013. The Nats made good on their potential under Williams’ watch, but it came with a few hiccups. Williams publicly butted heads with Bryce Harper early in the year. Williams then had to find a spot for a displaced Ryan Zimmerman and deal with a closer crisis in September. He made it through the challenges well enough for the Nats to see October, and that’s better than a season ago.
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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
