Buck Showalter of the New York Mets was named National League Manager of the Year Tuesday night, becoming the third person to win the fourth award and the first person to win four different franchises.
Showalter, the first Mets coach to win the award, received eight of the 30 first-place votes, 10 second-place votes and 77 total points, edging out Los Angeles Dodgers captain Dave Roberts, who finished second. Roberts also had eight first-place votes, but only had four second-place votes for his 57 points. Brian Snicker, the Atlanta player who won the award in 2018, finished third with 55 points. He received seven first-place votes.
The vote was taken by a committee of the Baseball Writers Association of America and took place prior to the post-season.
Showalter, 66, has won Manager of the Year honors in four different decades, and his previous honors have come with the New York Yankees (1994), Texas Rangers (2004) and Baltimore Orioles (2014). Other four-time winners are Hall of Famers Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa.
“The game has changed, but in many ways it has remained the same,” Showalter said of his four awards in four decades.
Under Showalter, the Mets made the postseason for the first time since 2016, losing in the wild card round to the San Diego Padres.
After three seasons out of the dugout, Showalter led New York to 101 wins, the most of any team he managed over 21 seasons. The 101 wins was also the highest total by the Mets since the club won 108 games in 1986. New York finished tied for first with the Braves in the NL East, although the Braves won the division title in a head-to-head showdown. tie breaker.
Five different managers have had multiple first-place votes—Showalter (8), Roberts (8), Snickers (7), Oliver Marmol of the St. Louis Cardinals (5) and Rob Thompson of the Philadelphia Phillies (2).
Roberts, 50, has guided the Dodgers to a franchise-record 111 wins, a high water mark for an organization that has made the postseason in each of Roberts’ seven seasons in the dugout, including six NL West titles.
Roberts, who was named the 2016 NL Manager of the Year, has a career winning percentage of . 632 in the regular season. This is the highest percentage ever among managers from a major baseball league in existence.
Only Bullet Rogan, Vic Harris, and Rube Foster, all of whom have managed in the Negro leagues, have higher lifetime winning percentages.
Snitker, 67, has gone from a professional coach and minor league manager to a match above the annual NL Manager of the Year vote.
The Braves’ 101 wins in 2022 was the most during Snitker’s six-plus seasons with the franchise he’s worked for since 1977. Atlanta extended its NL East title streak to five.
The past two seasons have seen Snicker help Atlanta weather a disappointing start only to catch fire late in the season. In 2021, the Braves’ late-season hot streak culminated in the World Series.
The Braves didn’t get that far in 2022, losing in the NLDS to the Phillies. However, Atlanta trailed the Mets in the divisional race by seven games on August 10 before storming back to win the division.
Snitker finished in the top four in voting for NL Manager of the Year in five consecutive seasons.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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