MLB's Best Managers, 2021

I'll be honest.  I don't think Gabe Kapler is a very good manager.  He was in way over his head in Philadelphia, and I thought the Giants made a huge mistake by hiring him.  With that being said, however, he's clearly the National League Manager of the Year.  It's not even close.  In fact, it should be unanimous.

No one saw the Giants' season coming.  They set a franchise record with 107 wins.  They snapped the Dodgers' seven-year run of NL West titles.  They had the best record in baseball.  And they did it with a team that was talented, but not star-studded like their rivals.  Instead, it was platoons and using everybody on the roster.  Yes, they lost in the playoffs.  But, as they always remind us, the voting for Manager of the Year is done before the playoffs begin.

Kapler's all-but-certain victory means Craig Counsell will have to settle for another runner-up finish.  The Brewers basically did the same thing they do every year.  Milwaukee used a ton of players, yet managed to win the NL Central anyway.  Which they did by holding off a surging Cardinals team in September.

Speaking of the Cardinals, Mike Shildt is the third finalist, which is just awkward.  Fortunately, he's not gonna win.  Although, he wouldn't be the first to win Manager of the Year and get fired in the same season.  Joe Girardi also had that honor after his only year with the Marlins.  Shildt's candidacy is based primarily on that 17-game winning streak that propelled St. Louis into the Wild Card Game, keeping with the Cardinals' tradition of making the playoffs with a few stars and a bunch of younger guys you've never heard of.

Brian Snitker easily could've been the third finalist, but I guess he'll just have to settle for a World Series ring instead.  As they said repeatedly during the World Series, Atlanta wasn't over .500 for good until August and had to navigate so many injuries they had basically an entirely new team in the second half of the season.  Yet the Braves got hot at the right time, surged to an NL East title, and ultimately won the championship.

In the American League, meanwhile, there were Manager of the Year candidates abound.  Last year's winner Kevin Cash, Dusty Baker and Scott Servais are all deserving finalists.  But a case could also be made for Tony La Russa.  And Charlie Montoyo.  And Alex Cora.  Although, frankly, I'm glad Cora won't get the recognition.  Because it still doesn't sit well with me that the Red Sox immediately hired him back after his suspension ended as if nothing ever happened (when he was the ringleader of the whole thing!).

You can't overlook the job Charlie Montoyo did in Toronto (and Buffalo, and Dunedin) this season.  Playing in the toughest division in baseball, they were in the playoff hunt all season and ended up with 90 wins, which is more than the World Series champions.  They did all this while playing their home games in three different cities.  When they finally returned to Toronto in July, it was the first time since September 2019 that they actually played a game in their home city.

Then there's Tony La Russa.  People though the White Sox were crazy for bringing the 77-year-old Hall of Famer out of retirement to manage for the first time in a decade.  With a team that was supposed to be good.  Would it work?  Well, the answer to that question was a resounding "Yes!"  The White Sox weren't just as good as advertised.  They were better.

When the White Sox played the Astros in the playoffs, it was a matchup of veteran managers, proving the old guys can still hold their own in this age of young, analytically-minded managers with little to no experience.  Dusty Baker deserves a lot of credit for rebuilding Houston's reputation.  They won another AL West title and reached their fifth straight ALCS while navigating a myriad of injuries, especially to the pitching staff.  Most importantly, they did it clean.  Things were understandably hostile every time they were on the road, yet Dusty still managed to lead the Astros to 95 wins.

Kevin Cash is looking to pull off the rare feat of winning back-to-back Manager of the Year awards.  What the Rays did this season might've been more impressive than their 2020 campaign.  Because this time, they sustained it for 162 games...and won 100 of them!  In the AL East.  With basically an entirely new pitching staff than last season.  In fact, you never knew who was gonna be in Tampa Bay's lineup on a given night.  The Rays used 61 players (38 of whom were pitchers) and had 158 different lineups in 162 games.  Yet they held off three well-financed rivals for their second straight division title.

How can the AL Manager of the Year not be Seattle's Scott Servais, though?  The Mariners being competitive is one thing.  Seattle being in the mix for a playoff spot until the literal last day of the season is something else entirely.  What's more impressive is the fact that the Mariners managed to win 90 games despite having a minus-51 run differential.  They shouldn't have been good.  Yet they were.

Traditionally, the Manager of the Year ends up going to the skipper of the team that most exceeded expectations.  That's why Kapler is a lock in the National League.  If that same criterion applies in the AL, it should also be an easy choice in the Junior Circuit.  It's true that Seattle didn't make the playoffs.  But the Mariners got pretty damn close!  And no one thought they would!

So, I think my choices are pretty clear here.  Gabe Kapler in the National League and Scott Servais in the American League.  It's the down-ballot voting that'll be interesting, though.  Because the top three could easily be a top five in each league.

As for my choices, in the National League I've got: 1. Kapler, 2. Snitker, 3. Counsell.  In the American League, I initially thought I'd go completely off the board and pick La Russa, despite knowing that he obviously didn't win, but I settled on putting him at No. 2 instead.  Because Servais is a clear No. 1.  Which means my AL ballot would look like this: 1. Servais, 2. La Russa, 3. Montoyo.