Brewers’ Pat Murphy wins third straight NL Manager of the Year; Phillies’ Don Mattingly finishes third
Pat Murphy led the Brewers to their first World Series title and an MLB-best 103 victories. Will Venable, who led a turnaround of the White Sox, won in the American League.
NEW YORK — Pat Murphy from first-time World Series champion Milwaukee is the NL Manager of the Year, making him the first skipper from either league to win the award three years in a row.
Murphy, who led the Brewers to an MLB-high 103 wins, received 20 of 30 first-place votes and 124 points to finish ahead of the Braves’ Walt Weiss (84) and the Phillies’ Don Mattingly (25).
Milwaukee has won the NL Central in all three seasons with Murphy as its manager after he spent eight seasons on Craig Counsell’s staff. The Brewers swept the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series and beat Tampa Bay in a five-game World Series.
Murphy, who turns 68 on Nov. 28, was in a hospital bed recovering from hip replacement surgery when he did interviews on MLB Network before and after the announcement.
Mattingly led the Phillies to a 79-55 record as interim manager after taking over for Rob Thomson, who was fired in April after a 9-19 start. The Phillies reached the playoffs on the final day of the regular season and lost a wild-card series to Weiss’ Braves in three games. The Phillies removed the interim tag and signed Mattingly to a two-year extension after the season.
Will Venable won the AL Manager of the Year award after the Chicago White Sox made the playoffs this year following three 100-loss seasons in a row.
The White Sox became the first team in major league history to reach the playoffs after consecutive 100-loss seasons. Only the third of those came under Venable after he took over in 2025. Chicago went 84-78 this year.
Venable got 15 of 30 first-place votes and 111 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America that was conducted before the postseason and announced Tuesday night. The other AL finalists were two-time winner Kevin Cash of the AL champion Tampa Bay Rays, who got 12 first-place votes and 98 points, and Chad Tracy, who took over the Boston Red Sox in April and led them to the playoffs.
Venable, a former big league outfielder, got his first managerial job when the White Sox were coming off 121 losses in 2024, a record for the most since 1900, after 101 losses the previous season. They went 60-102 in Venable’s debut and followed that this season by making the playoffs for the first time since 2021.
After sweeping Houston in two games on the road in the AL Wild Card Series, they had a 2-0 series lead before losing a five-game AL Division Series to Cleveland.
Venable is first White Sox manager to win the award since Ozzie Guillen in 2005.
The general managers' meetings will begin Monday evening in Las Vegas, and the Phillies will be there. Former Mets and Orioles GM Jim Duquette, now the host of a show on MLB Network Radio, joined Phillies Extra to discuss how Dave Dombrowski can improve the roster and which free agents might fit best. He also offers a scouting report on Japanese slugger Teruaki Sato and weighs in on whether to expect a flurry of activity before the looming lockout. Watch here.
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