It’s time to hit pause on the baseball awards season to dissect one of the votes.
Mine.
I tipped my laptop to Mike Shildt as National League Manager of the Year. I was the only one among those with the Baseball Writers Association of America to do so.
Was it a hometown lean? Was it geography bias?
No, not in my mind. It was based on facts and feel, just as in 2020 when I voted for Don Mattingly of the Marlins over the Padres’ Jayce Tingler.
There were compelling reasons to go with Tingler. San Diego returned to the playoffs for the first time in 14 years and compiled a significantly better record during the pandemic-shortened season.
The Marlins, among other things, were decimated by COVID-19. The clubhouse found itself in shambles.
What Mattingly navigated and steadied was unprecedented amid unprecedented times.
I was roasted by some Padres fans, who think the responsibility in those situations is to blindly the local guy, reason and rationale be damned.
That’s not the role of journalists in those situations or any other. If everyone voted that way, what would be the point? If a zip code trumped the body of work, the award should not exist.
Fast forward to this season.
I was fully aware that Pat Murphy of the Brewers would be the favorite and likely winner. The responsibility, though, is to dig in and unpeel the layers with an open mind.
Murphy is deserving and the Brewers, despite myriad challenges, put together a terrific season.
Which manager, though, elevated his team more?
The Brewers won 92 games in 2023, adding one more win this season in one of the weaker divisions in baseball. The Padres, playing in arguably the toughest division, improved by 11 games in Shildt’s first season.
The Brewers, despite the churn virtually all teams confront from season to season, were good in 2023 and good in 2024. The Padres, though, were an underachieving mess a season ago.
There was no disputing the differences in the big-picture repair jobs.
Not only did Shildt man the rudder ably, his team captured the season series against the World Series-winning Dodgers. He pushed the team that upgraded a loaded roster with $1 billion-plus in offseason additions further than anyone in the National League.
Both managers side-stepped peril.
The Brewers traded away former Cy Young pitcher Corbin Burnes. The Padres lost reigning Cy Young winner Blake Snell. An injury sidelined Brewers All-Star arm Brandon Woodruff for the season. The Padres lost mound anchors Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove for extended stretches, with the pair averaging barely more than 90 innings.
That easily was a career low for Darvish, outside of truncated 2020. For Musgrove, it was the fewest beyond 2020 and his rookie season.
The Brewers lost All-Star closer Devin Williams for significant time. The Padres saw valuable Swiss Army knife arm Nick Martinez bolt in free agency.
Milwaukee lost leader Christian Yelich to back surgery after 315 plate appearances. The Padres waded through injuries to platinum glove winner Fernando Tatis Jr., gold glove shortstop Ha Seong-Kim and the slow post-surgery start of Manny Machado.
The Padres season became more impressive and amplified after trading away Juan Soto, one of the elite players in the game, as part of a $90 million payroll haircut.
They gambled on two-thirds of their outfield, playing rookie Jackson Merrill in center field, one of the game’s most defensive spots, for the first time in the former shortstop’s professional career.
They crossed their fingers on veteran Jurickson Profar in left field. He was coming off a rocky season with the Rockies when the Padres picked him up for $1 million off the free-agent scrap heap.
Shildt had to steer through it all.
He led the Padres to the most wins after the All-Star Break. His bunch finished with baseball’s batting-average crown for the first time. The 93 wins are the second most in franchise history.
Shildt’s debut was not simply successful. It bordered on history in multiple ways.
The Padres became an awards bridesmaid with Merrill finishing second to Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes in NL Rookie of the Year voting. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller had to be at the top before missing out on executive of the year.
That winner? Brewers general manager Matt Arnold.
Shildt cares less about winning an award than ensuring his team returns to the playoffs next season. Still, he deserved it more than most of the country thinks.
I stand by my vote.
