Vogt, Murphy win top managers in first year on job
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
The Milwaukee Brewers‘ Pat Murphy and Cleveland Guardians‘ Stephen Vogt were named Managers of the Year on Tuesday after leading their teams to the playoffs in their first full seasons managing.
A longtime college coach, Murphy took over in Milwaukee after Craig Counsell left to manage the rival Chicago Cubs. Under Murphy, the Brewers went 93-69 and finished 10 games ahead of the Cubs in the National League Central, the largest gap between first- and second-place teams in the 2024 Major League Baseball season.
The 40-year-old Vogt, who played for Milwaukee in 2017 when Murphy was the team’s bench coach, steered Cleveland to a 92-69 record and a first-place finish in the American League Central. The Guardians made it to the AL Championship Series before losing to the New York Yankees.
Only once before had two managers in their first full seasons won Manager of the Year, according to the Elias Sports Bureau: 2019, when Minnesota‘s Rocco Baldelli won in his rookie season and St. Louis‘ Mike Shildt was in his first full year after taking over midseason in 2018. Murphy spent 96 games as interim manager for San Diego in 2015, while Vogt never had managed prior to this year after retiring from playing in 2022.
Despite injuries to starters Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie that left the Guardians short-handed for most of the season, Vogt managed Cleveland’s bullpen brilliantly, with its 2.57 ERA more than half a run better than the next-best team. The Guardians improved by 16 games over the previous season and won Vogt’s first playoff series against Detroit until the Yankees dismissed them in five games.
“Every single day you go to work and you have a job and you can have a bad day or you can have a day where you don’t really feel like being 100 percent there,” Vogt said. “But in this job, my sole goal is to be 100 percent present for the other people in that clubhouse. And realizing how difficult that is day in and day out, it’s a tip of the cap to the other managers around baseball because they’re all doing the same thing.”
Over his 10-year playing career, Vogt played for six teams and was twice an All-Star. He took over in Cleveland for the retiring Terry Francona — himself a three-time Manager of the Year — after spending a season as the Seattle Mariners‘ bullpen coach.
“Everyone knew that Stephen Vogt was going to be something special in baseball,” Murphy said. “Nobody’s surprised he’s managing and managing well. His personality, his understanding of teams, understanding a game — I mean, it fits like a glove.”
Vogt received 27 of 30 first-place votes and finished ahead of two other AL Central managers, Kansas City‘s Matt Quatraro (two first-place votes) and Detroit’s A.J. Hinch (one).
“It’s just a testament to the entire group’s work and what we’ve accomplished,” said Vogt, who was the third rookie manager to win AL Manager of the Year and the third Guardians manager alongside Francona and Eric Wedge to capture the award. “And I think just looking back a year ago when I got the job and the amount of support and work that was put in by the entire Cleveland organization and coming to spring training with a plan and then our guys going out and executing that plan — it led to this.”
Murphy, 65, had spent eight years as Milwaukee’s bench coach before replacing Counsell, who he had coached at Notre Dame. Murphy’s success there — he went 318-116-1 — led to his hiring at Arizona State, where he spent 15 seasons and went to the College World Series four times. His first job in pro baseball came with the Padres as a special assistant and, eventually, their interim manager following the firing of Bud Black.
“Those eight years taught me a lot because I really focused on trying to be the assistant or the bench coach that I would want and I wasn’t great at it,” Murphy said. “I’d tell Couns all the time, ‘How can I help you more, man, what can I do? Where do I fit? I kind of don’t know this job.’ I get bored with some of the nonsense that anybody can do, so I want to be around people, I want to help people, and Counsell is so great at kind of letting me know where I was having an effect. But yeah, I’m way more natural, I think, doing this.”
Murphy inherited a Brewers team that was expected to finish in the middle of the pack in the NL Central. Instead, Milwaukee blitzed the division, taking over first place May 9 and holding it for the remainder of the season. With the worst record of the three NL division winners, the Brewers faced the New York Mets in the wild card round and blew a late-inning lead in the decisive Game 3.
Like Vogt, Murphy received 27 first-place votes. Shildt, now with San Diego, received one first-place vote and finished second, and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, who also got a first-place vote, was third. The final first-place vote went to Philadelphia‘s Rob Thomson, who finished fifth, behind Arizona‘s Torey Lovullo.
“I just didn’t want to let the Brewers down, from the ownership to the front office to the players, the coaching staff. I didn’t want to let ’em down,” Murphy said. “I wanted to be prepared. I wanted to make sure that I did something to advance the needle a little bit and infuse something that might make an impact.”
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani‘s second start saw him record his first two strikeouts, but he did not advance beyond the first inning despite throwing only 18 pitches — a sign of how careful the Los Angeles Dodgers are being with his pitching progression.
“That was the original plan,” Ohtani, speaking through an interpreter, said after the Dodgers’ 13-7 win over the Washington Nationals on Sunday. “I look forward to adding more and more pitches.”
Ohtani worked around a wild pitch and a dropped popup from outfielder-turned-shortstop Mookie Betts to throw a scoreless top of the first inning, while making his second start in seven days. He struck out the game’s third batter, Luis Garcia Jr., on a sweeper that dropped toward his shoe-tops, then executed a tight, arm-side slider to strike out Nathaniel Lowe and end the inning. Ohtani’s fastball topped out at 98.8 mph after reaching triple digits in his pitching debut Monday.
Ohtani, who called his own pitches through a PitchCom device, said he was “able to relax much better” in his second outing. The biggest improvement, Ohtani added, was “the way my body moves when I pitch.”
“It’s something that I worked on with the pitching coaches, and I felt a lot better this time.”
Offensively, Ohtani went 2-for-19 with nine strikeouts in the five days between his starts. Ohtani has remained at the leadoff spot on his start days, which has meant rushing to put on his helmet, elbow pad and batting gloves in the middle of the first inning, then walking toward the batter’s box without hardly being able to take any practice swings.
In his pitching debut Monday, that was followed by a strikeout. The same occurred Sunday. But his bat came alive later in the game, after the Dodgers had finally broken through against Nationals starter Michael Soroka. With the bases loaded, no outs and his team leading by a run in the seventh, Ohtani laced a 101.3 mph bases-clearing triple to break open the game. An inning later, he added a two-run homer — his National League-leading 26th — on a ball that just barely made it over the fence in left-center.
“He’s a unicorn,” Dodgers rookie catcher Dalton Rushing said. “He does it all.”
The Dodgers have considered moving Ohtani out of the leadoff spot on his start days, particularly at home, to avoid the shorter preparation time before his first plate appearance. But they are adamant about continuing to be methodical with his pitching progression. He’ll make his third start at some point in the next six to eight days and could extend into the second inning then, but it’ll be a while until he is built up like a traditional starting pitcher again.
“It’s going to be a gradual process,” Ohtani said. “I want to see improvements with the quality of the pitches that I’m throwing and then also increasing the amount of pitches.”
NEW YORK — Ryan Yarbrough was put on the 15-day injured list with a strained right oblique in another blow to the Yankees rotation, and rookie Allan Winans will make his New York debut Monday night at Cincinnati after going 7-0 with an 0.90 ERA at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Yarbrough, a 33-year-old right-hander who joined the rotation in May, is 3-1 with a 3.90 ERA in eight starts and eight relief appearances. He last pitched on Wednesday, getting a no-decision in a loss to the Los Angeles Angels.
“Something that’s been kind of coming on a little bit in his second-to-last start and then a little more sore towards the end of this last start,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Sunday. “After his last start was pretty sore the next day and then before he was getting ready to throw his side the other day felt like couldn’t quite do it.”
Boone said a scan indicated a low-grade strain. New York made the IL placement retroactive to Friday and recalled left-hander Jayvien Sandridge from the RailRiders.
New York already was missing ace Gerrit Cole (Tommy John surgery), 2024 AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil (lat strain) and Marcus Stroman (left knee inflammation).
Winans will become the Yankees’ eighth starting pitcher this season, matching their 2024 total.
A 29-year-old right-hander originally selected by the New York Mets in the 17th round of the 2018 amateur draft, Winans made his big league debut with Atlanta in July 2023 and was 1-4 with a 7.20 ERA in eight starts over two seasons. The Yankees claimed him off waivers on Jan. 23.
Winans’ fastball has averaged 90 mph this season. In a 4-3 win at Louisville on Tuesday, he threw 23 sinkers, 19 changeups, 18 sliders, 10 fastballs and seven curveballs.
“He’s been tremendous. To be this deep in the season as a starting pitcher, have sub-1 [ERA], it’s been really, really excellent,” Boone said. “So, hopefully, he brings some of that up here with us tomorrow.”
Stroman last pitched for the Yankees on April 11 and is to make a third minor league rehab start Tuesday.
“Hopefully around 70 pitches or so and then be in the mix,” Boone said.
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