Here’s a few things to monitor around the baseball world today:
1. GM Meetings continue in Las Vegas
Baseball’s annual General Manager Meetings are this week in Las Vegas, Nevada. While they typically don’t feature as many transactions as the more well known Winter Meetings, the GM Meetings still see executives laying the groundwork for offseason trades and free agent signings. With all 30 teams as well as many player agents in attendance, there might be some interesting rumors trickling through later in the day. Among the new leaders this year are Paul DePodesta, Chaim Bloom, and Paul Toboni. Of course, all three have significant baseball experience, but DePodesta is returning to the sport as the Rockies’ president of baseball operations after spending a decade in the front office for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. Bloom recently took over as president of baseball ops for the Cardinals, while Toboni assumed that role for the Nationals back in September.
2. Manager of the Year Awards announced tonight
Awards season continues with the Manager of the Year winners set to be announced tonight at 6 pm CT. The American League finalists are Blue Jays manager John Schneider, Mariners skipper Dan Wilson, and Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, who won the award last year. Schneider took the Blue Jays from last place in 2024 to Game 7 of the World Series this year, while Wilson’s Mariners and Vogt’s Guardians both won their respective divisions, with the Guardians mounting a historic comeback to overtake the Tigers on the final day of the regular season. Meanwhile, the National League contenders are the Brewers’ Pat Murphy, the Phillies’ Rob Thomson, and the Reds’ Terry Francona. The Brewers under Murphy had the best record in the majors at 97-65 (.599), while Thomson took the Phillies to the NLDS and Francona took the Reds to the playoffs in his first year at the helm.
3. MLBTR chat today
The offseason continues with the GM meetings running through November 13, the deadline for qualifying offer acceptance coming on the 18th, and the non-tender deadline a few days later on the 21st. Whether your team is planning an active offseason or merely looking to improve the margins of their roster, MLBTR’s Steve Adams has you covered in a live chat at 1 pm CT later today. You can click here to ask a question in advance, join in live once the chat begins, or read the transcript once the chat is complete.
Aaron Boone is the obvious choice for MOY. He’s the best manager there is. Brian Cashman said so.
Hey now, I know you love Boone and Cashman, but come on your pinstripes are showing! It’s right in front of you, to paraphrase Boone!
I detected a hint of sarcasm there. 😂
Manager of the year is always a little tricky to determine. Generally, though, it’s the manager whose team outperform expectations the most.
Seattle had a great season, but they were expected to most likely be a playoff team. They went a little beyond expectations, but by how much?
Cleveland got into the playoffs thanks in no small part to a historic collapse from Detroit. (and a lesser collapse by Houston to ensure a wildcard if they didn’t get the division). They still did their part, but like every year, Cleveland was expected to be among the challengers for the division. They may have exceeded expectations, but again, by how much?
Toronto finished last in the AL East last season and the talk last offseason was about a possible deadline selloff, likely management firings and an incoming rebuild. They ended up winning not just the division but the American League, both in the regular season and the playoffs and going to game 7 against the big bad Dodgers. It’s difficult to come up with a wider gap between expectations and results.
John Schneider should be Manager of the Year. But I don’t get a vote so who knows.
I’d have to give it to Schneider too. I had picked the Jays to finish last again (albeit with a record close to .500) so they were definitely the biggest “surprise” success to me. Plus, the narrative about the Jays was that a good clubhouse culture was a big part of their success, and regardless of how much of a tangible impact those things actually have, the manager has to be seen as part of that.
SOMEBODY SIGN SOMEBODY ALREADY REEEEEE
Orioles traded for Kitredge, that counts as a move lol
I would not give it to Schneider. If your metric is “expectations” I find it hard to believe that a team whose payroll is 5th highest in the majors is not expected to be good. The question is: why did they suck last year?
A good manager takes a team with a low payroll and pulls them together to a cohesive and winning unit. Vogt gets for me in the AL thanks to the late season surge and the 25th highest payroll, and Francona gets it for me in the NL, partially due to the 23rd highest payroll but also because MIL (22nd highest) was there the year before so played basically the same.
Also remember that voting took place the day after the season. What did voters see at that point? A CLE team that surged late and played great baseball when it counted versus a TOR team that swooned badly and barely hung-on in the last weekend.
I would hope voters would also remember the historic collapse that was required to lift Cleveland into the playoffs, that Cleveland themselves had little to do with.
Also using your same logic, if Cleveland’s story was so great, why were they so far behind Detroit in the first place? Wasn’t that also on the manager?
Also, money doesn’t equal success, just ask the Mets.
Yes the Jays have a high payroll. So do two other division rivals. Evey franchise in the AL Central is in the bottom half of MLB payrolls. Being competitive in the Central requires considerably less funding.
So money doesn’t equal success or the AL Central is weak due to overall spending?
One could easily argue that my reds backed into the playoffs, too. The mets were pretty effing bad in September. I’m not real sure ANY of these finalists DESERVE to win.
lol
“…TOR team that swooned badly and barely hung-on in the last weekend.”
Jays only won their last 5 in-a-row …when they had to win them ALL …to win the AL East.
Whether he wins it or not, Schneider had a MOY-type year and, to my eyes, he showed significant growth in that capacity.
Deck – They sucked last year because of injuries, which is always a MAJOR factor in a team’s success or failures.
Did you forget they were a playoff team in 2023?
And that’s precisely why prior to this season I said the Jays are a team to watch. You can’t just look at last year’s standings, you need to consider WHY they were so bad in 2024. For instance Bo played in only half the games, and he was hurt in those 81 guys he played.
Their star closer Romano was also hurt all of last year.
Varsho missed significant time too, the list goes on.
FPG, if you’re going to consider why they were so bad then you have to look at the standings.
Cleveland lost Naylor, Gimenez, Lively, Fry – then the one of the best closers in baseball, Clase, and another starter, Ortiz – and still won the division with an historic late season run … gotta be Vogt again.
He isn’t one of the finalists–but CC actually did a terrific job with the Cubs this year. The hitters stopped after the ASB, and so did most of the pitchers. The team’s longest winning streak of the year, remarkably, was 5; they really weren’t good enough on either side of the ball to do better than that. But, mostly through excellent handling of the bullpen, CC minimized losing streaks too, and won 92 games and made the postseason. He deserves some props.
Milwaukees Murphy gets my vote. Best record in the league from a small market team. No mvp or Cy young candidate. Just good ball
Just give Pat Murphy manager of the decade and call ‘er quits
I am 100% in Dan the Man’s corner with a totally unbiased take.
Krall did a move behind a door labelled Men.
That’s the best we can hope for til January.
Not hating on Vogt at all as he is a great manager. But Cleveland winning the division is more about Detroit imploding than Cleveland overcoming them.
a team had to overcome the collapse of the Tigers, or every team in the central division could have collapsed and any team would have won the division
Cleveland’s manager deserves the award
Eventually they will rename the Manager of the Year award to Analytics Department of the year.
moy OBVIOUSLY goes to dave Roberts. the move replacing edman w Pages for defense was pure, undistilled genius. proves me wrong for all these years criticising his use of pitchers in postseason, can you say plot twist? all along he was playing 4d checkers whilst i struggle w basic calculus
He didn’t have enough payroll to work with either. Slam dunk.
The slope is zero at the top of the pop.
Did that help?