The Baseball Writer's Association of America announced the 2014 Manager of the Year awards Tuesday evening, as Matt Williams of the Washington Nationals won in the National League and Buck Showalter of the Baltimore Orioles won in the American League.
Here are the National League voting results:
And here are the American League results:
Williams led the Nationals to a 96-66 record, the best in the National League, and topped the NL East by 17 games. While the team stumbled in the postseason, keep in mind that the BBWAA awards only take into consideration the regular season.
Williams quickly deflected any credit for the award to his team, per MLB Network PR:
Still, he joined a pretty exclusive group, per the MLB on Twitter:
Eric James Byrnes of the MLB Network thought Williams was more than deserving:
Meanwhile, Showalter won this award for the third time in his career. Despite injuries throughout the 2014 campaign to key players like Matt Wieters and Manny Machado, Showalter led the Orioles to a 96-66 record and an AL East title, arguably the most competitive division in baseball.
Showalter also has a knack for winning this award in regular increments, as ESPN Stats & Info tweeted:
Of course, perhaps Showalter winning the award shouldn't come as a surprise. According to the MLB Fan Cave on Twitter, everybody loves Buck:
Both managers were deserving of the award. The dominance of the Nationals in the NL East was hard to ignore, while Showalter's job in the brutal AL East despite major injuries was nothing short of incredible.
One would expect both of these managers would have their respective teams in the postseason race again next season.
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