Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
The American League and National League Manager of the Year will be announced on Tuesday night at 7:00 PM ET.
Awards season continues with the Manager of the Year winners set to be announced tonight on MLB Network at 6 pm CT / 7pm ET.
Our Leader. Our Skipper. John Schneider is a Finalist for AL Manager of the Year!
John 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.
While Wilson and Vogt were great managers in 2025, John Schneider was even better.
Schneider took a 74-win team and brought them straight to the top of the American League, blowing away every expectation placed on the Blue Jays coming into 2025.
Managers of overachieving teams tend to do well in Manager of the Year voting, and when you consider the individual growth that Schneider himself has shown in this job, he’s made an excellent case to become just the second Blue Jays manager in history to win this award and the first since Bobby Cox in 1985.
If Schneider doesn’t win tonight there is something definitely wrong with the world.
National League manager of the year finalists
Meanwhile, the National League contenders are the Milwaukee Brewers’ Pat Murphy, Philadelphia Phillies’ ( Corunna Ontario, native) Rob Thomson, and the Cincinnati 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.
While Phillies manager Rob Thomson had another stellar year, expectations were high in Philadelphia and the fizzled out fast in the postseason.
The reigning manager of the year Pat Murghy is a strong candidate to win the award again, but I think Terry Francona will come out on top in 2025.
Already with three Manager of the Year awards on his resume, Francona has repeatedly proven he can make a difference upon arrival and that was the case in Cincinnati, as the Reds won 83 games and clinched an NL Wild Card spot on the season’s final day.
For the third time in his career, the 66-year-old led a club to the postseason in his first season after also doing it in Boston (2004) and Cleveland (2013).
Under Francona’s steady leadership, the Reds were able to make a big turnaround when it counted most down the stretch. On Sept. 5, they trailed the Mets and the Padres for the final NL Wild Card spot by six games, while also being behind two other teams.
Then after being swept for the second and final time by the Athletics from Sept. 12-14 to drop one game under .500 at 74-75, Cincinnati won nine of its final 13 games.
It clinched a playoff spot on a tiebreaker advantage over the Mets, having won the season series, 4-2.
It was the 12th time in his 24 seasons that a Francona-managed club reached the playoffs.
Previously on Blue Jays Central
