MLB.com’s Manager of the Year preview splits the field between turnarounds and steady hands

MLB.com’s Manager of the Year preview makes one thing clear: the 2026 race is not built around a single kind of success. Some candidates inherited broken situations and reset them fast. Others kept already strong clubs pointed in the right direction, often while the season kept trying to push them off course.

That split matters because the six nominees did not arrive there the same way. Five of them were not finalists last year, and two — Boston’s Chad Tracy and Philadelphia’s Don Mattingly — were not even managing their current teams on Opening Day. The award voting is done at the end of the regular season, and MLB.com said the winners would be announced Tuesday, which keeps the focus on what each manager had already accomplished by then.

Kevin Cash’s case starts with the bluntest evidence in the group: Tampa Bay finished with the best record in the American League. The Rays were projected to finish fifth in the AL East and entered the season with a modest playoff chance, but they went 98-64, won the division by 4 1/2 games and earned the top spot in the league’s postseason field.

That result is more impressive because the preview does not treat it as a one-man story. It points to the Rays’ low payroll, their small-ball tactics and Cash’s ability to evolve with the roster over time. It also gives the front office and players their due. Cash’s value, in other words, was not that he created the roster himself. It was that he managed it in a way that let the pieces fit together.

Tracy’s argument is different. It is built on speed, pressure and a turnaround that arrived after he was pulled out of Triple-A Worcester and dropped into a job that had just opened when Alex Cora was dismissed. On June 25, Boston was 32-46 and had the worst winning percentage in the American League. Then the Red Sox went on a 32-5 run that changed the shape of their season.

The preview calls that stretch a stunning reversal and ties it to the rest of the year. Boston went 77-58 under Tracy, including 55-29 in its final 84 games, and reached the postseason. His interim tag was replaced by a three-year extension in September. MLB.com also notes that many of the players already knew Tracy from his earlier work in Worcester, but the more important point is that he steadied a club that had been heading the wrong way and got it back into position quickly.

Will Venable’s White Sox case centers on a different kind of rescue. Chicago had lost 100 or more games in each of the previous three seasons, including a modern-era record 121 in 2024. Under Venable, the White Sox won 84 games, finished as the American League’s sixth seed and third Wild Card, swept the Astros in the Wild Card round and earned their first postseason series victory since the 2005 World Series run.

The preview says Venable established a clear culture: play hard for 27 outs, stay prepared, and think one day at a time. That phrasing matters because it shows the award case is not only about the standings jump. It is also about how a club that had lived in the loss column for years managed to adopt a different standard and sustain it over 162 games.

In the National League, Don Mattingly’s case resembles Tracy’s in structure but not in scale. The Phillies were 9-19 when Rob Thomson was fired on April 28, and Mattingly took over a team that had just snapped a 10-game losing streak. From there, Philadelphia posted the fourth-best record in baseball the rest of the season, captured the third NL Wild Card on the final day and reached the postseason for the fifth straight year.

The preview does not pretend the roster was cleanly built for him. It points to offensive struggles, bullpen holes and below-average defense. That context matters because it makes the finish more meaningful, not less: Mattingly managed a flawed team well enough to keep its postseason streak alive and secure his place in the organization beyond the interim label.

Pat Murphy stands apart from the rest because his case is about sustaining a high level rather than reversing a slump. He had already won the NL Manager of the Year Award in 2024 and 2025, and MLB.com notes that nobody has ever won it three years in a row. The Brewers nevertheless set a franchise record with 103 wins and again led the majors, despite projection systems expecting 81 or 82 victories and most experts picking the Cubs to win the division.

Walt Weiss rounds out the field with a season that combined early force and long-term damage control. Atlanta took control after an April 7 benches-clearing brawl, then stayed atop the NL East from April 8 through the end of the season despite spring injuries to four starting pitchers, a 162-game PED suspension for Jurickson Profar, time missed by Ronald Acuña Jr. and injuries that kept testing the rotation depth.

The preview’s larger point is simple: the Manager of the Year race is built from different kinds of control. Some clubs were turned around. Others were held together. Tuesday’s announcement will settle the vote, but MLB.com’s case for the six nominees already shows the shape of the season they managed.