Awards Week continues on and sadly for the Atlanta Braves and Walt Weiss, there won’t be any Manager of the Year celebrations going on locally.
In fact, Milwaukee Brewers manager and 2026 World Series Champion Pat Murphy will be busy celebrating his third-straight NL Manager of the Year Award win in the hospital, as he accepted the award live on MLB Network from a hospital bed as he recovers from hip surgery. The voting ended up being a bit lopsided, as any rumors of voter fatigue were clearly exaggerated.
Weiss did finish as the runner-up, with Philadelphia Phillies manager Don Mattingly coming in a distant third place.
To be honest, it’s not a crazy sentiment. The Brewers have constantly been counted out going into any given season and this year the outdid themselves by winning over 100 games and being the best team in baseball from start to finish. While the Postseason has no bearing on award voting, looking at how the Brewers won their games was clear that Murphy was not just in charge of a talented team but a team that may be exploring a brand new way of winning ballgames going forward — not just for Milwaukee but for the entire sport as well.
Weiss ended up getting seven first-place votes, sixteen second-place votes and three third-place votes for 86 points but again, he was a distant runner-up in favor of Murphy. Weiss did a fine job of managing the Braves in his first season as a big league skipper since the 2016 season with the Colorado Rockies. The Braves had a tough season in 2025, so Weiss deserves a ton of credit for helping to lead this team back to the Postseason and the status of being a contender in the National League.
Over in the American League, Chicago White Sox manager Will Venable took the honors as the AL Manager of the Year. Despite Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash being in a similar position as Murphy when it comes to the style of play possibly being revolutionary as far as the current state of baseball strategy and tactics go, it’s hard to look past what Venable did as manager of the White Sox. Plain-and-simply, if you take a team to the Postseason after their most recent two seasons beforehand saw them lose 100-plus games, you’re going to receive honors for that season.
Will Venable is well-deserving of his award and so is Pat Murphy as well. Walt Weiss came up just short but I’d imagine that plenty of Braves fans are still pretty happy with having Weiss as their manager right now. All’s well that ends well.
Stay tuned, as Awards Week continues on tomorrow with the Cy Young Awards, along with the MLB Awards in Las Vegas. Chris Sale is a finalist but he’ll certainly be a long shot for the NL Cy Young Award. We’ll see what happens, though.
