The 2026 Manager of the Year in the American League is Will Venable, it was announced today. The 2026 Manager of the Year in the National League is Pat Murphy.
Venable, in his second year as manager of the White Sox, received 15 first place votes, 11 second place votes and three third place votes. He narrowly edged out Kevin Cash of the Tampa Bay Rays, who received 12 first place and 12 second place votes, along with two third place votes.
Former Ranger minor leaguer Chad Tracy, who replaced Alex Cora
as manager of the Boston Red Sox early in the season, finished third, with three first place votes, five second place votes and a whopping 17 third place votes, which seems kind of weird. Stephen Vogt, Aaron Boone and Joe Espada also appeared on ballots.
Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker did not appear on any ballots.
Manager of the Year is a weird award, generally going to a manager of a team that exceeds expectations, with bonus points if its a low payroll team. Venable was left off one ballot — that of Brendan Kuty of the Athletic, one of the two representatives from the New York chapter who voted for A.L. Manager of the Year. Kuty went Cash, Boone, and Tracy. The other Boone voter was Chris McCosky of the Detroit News, who had Boone third. Espada’s lone vote, not surprisingly, came from one of the Houston chapter voters, Angel Cantu.
The full results for the American League are here.
Murphy is in his third season as the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, and has won his third straight National League Manager of the Year Award. He got 20 first place votes, seven second place votes, and three third place votes. Walt Weiss of the Atlanta Braves was second, appearing on 26 of 30 ballots and getting seven first place votes. Don Mattingly, who took over from Rob Thomson with the Phillies after Thomson was fired right after the Red Sox fired Cora, and after Cora passed on the Phillies job, edged out Craig Stammen of the Padres by one point. Dave Roberts, Craig Counsell, and Don Kelly also received votes.
The full results for the National League are here.
