(Cleveland) - The Baseball Writers Association of America today announced Cleveland Guardians Manager Terry Francona has been selected the American League Manager of the Year, beating out Baltimore’s Brandon Hyde and Seattle’s Scott Servais.
MOST WINS
MLB MANAGERS, 2013-22
Manager Wins
Francona, Terry 845
Melvin, Bob 801
Maddon, Joe 770
Mattingly, Don 721
Francona, 63, recently guided Cleveland to its sixth Postseason appearance during his ten-year tenure, including five trips in the last seven campaigns since 2016. The 2022 club featured the youngest roster in MLB, posting a AL Central Division-winning record of 92-70 (.568), the first time in American League history a team qualified for Postseason play as baseball’s youngest team and the eighth overall in MLB history (first time since 1986*). The 2022 club claimed its 11th division title since the A.L. Central's inception in 1994, the most in the division in that time frame (MIN, 8).
The 2022 club sat at 54-52, in second place, 2.0-games back of division-leading Minnesota on August 5 before going 38-18 (.679) the remainder of the season, gaining 16.0 games on the Twins and 11.0 games on the second place White Sox, eventually winning the Central by 11 full games. The club turned on the jets over the season’s final five weeks, going an MLB-best 24-9 (.727) after August 31st. The 2022 Guardians saw 17 rookies make their Major League debuts, matching the club record for most debuts in a single campaign (also: 1912 & 1914), becoming the first team in MLB history to win a division or league title while seeing 17+ rookies make their debuts (Detroit held the previous such mark with 15 debuts in 2014 (**).
Since 2013, Tito has guided the Guardians (845-671, .557) to the A.L.'s 2nd-best win pct., behind only the New York Yankees (.566). Cleveland has posted a winning record in 9 of his 10 seasons, only three other Major League clubs have more over that span (10, LAD, STL, NYY). He remains the club’s all-time leader in tenure (10 seasons) and wins (845) and is 16th in MLB history with 1,874 career managerial wins. During Tito’s 10-year tenure, the club has been out of contention for just 18 games over that entire span.
Today’s award is the third earned by Francona over his 10-year tenure with Cleveland (2013, 2016). He remains the only manager in club history to win the award multiple times. The BBWAA began voting on the Manager of the Year Award in 1983.
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