Pat Murphy became the first Major League Baseball manager to win the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Manager of the Year award in three successive seasons when the National League result was announced on November 10. Murphy received 20 first-place votes and 124 points after the Milwaukee Brewers went 103–59, the best record in the majors and a franchise high. Atlanta’s Walt Weiss finished second on 86 points and Philadelphia’s Don Mattingly was third on 25.

Milwaukee has a World Series trophy from the same season, the first in franchise history. The ballots were filed before the postseason, so the award recognizes the work that gave the Brewers the top seed. In 2026 that work included a pitching staff that started rookies in almost half its games and an offense that ranked near the top of baseball in runs while ranking near the bottom in home runs. The title extended the story into October. The voting result reflects how Milwaukee navigated the six months that got it there.

The scale of the winning vote

Murphy appeared on all 30 ballots. Seven writers ranked him second and three put him third. The scoring system awards five points for first place, three for second and one for third. Weiss had seven first-place votes, 16 seconds and three thirds. The Braves went 94–68 and won the NL East after a 76–86 season in 2025. That turnaround gave voters a strong alternative, and the large number of second-place votes for Weiss shows how widely his work was recognized. Murphy’s 13-vote edge at the top of the ballot provided most of his overall margin.

Mattingly took over as interim manager in April after the Phillies dismissed Rob Thomson. CBS Sports reported that Philadelphia posted baseball’s fourth-best record following the change. Mattingly finished a point ahead of San Diego’s Craig Stammen, who received two first-place votes to Mattingly’s one. The gap between second and third was much wider. The writers gave their strongest backing to the managers of the two division winners at the top of the ballot, while leaving room for candidates whose teams had different starting points or paths through the season.

The BBWAA introduced the award in 1983. Bobby Cox won in back-to-back years with Atlanta in 2004 and 2005, Kevin Cash with Tampa Bay in 2020 and 2021, and Stephen Vogt with Cleveland in 2024 and 2025. Murphy joined that group last year and went beyond it this time. He is the tenth manager to win at least three times overall. Cox, Tony La Russa and Buck Showalter won four each. Murphy also shares the distinction of three wins with one franchise with Cox in Atlanta, Dusty Baker in San Francisco and Terry Francona in Cleveland.

Three winning seasons with different demands

Murphy inherited a team that already knew how to win its division. Craig Counsell guided Milwaukee to 92 wins and the NL Central title in 2023 before moving to the Chicago Cubs. Corbin Burnes, the 2021 NL Cy Young winner, also left that offseason. The Brewers promoted their bench coach and won 93 games in 2024, 97 in 2025 and 103 in 2026. Their fourth consecutive division title thus spanned two managers, and the rising win totals under Murphy came after a transition in both the dugout and the rotation.

The progression matters because a 92-win baseline already sets a high standard. The Brewers could retain parts of a successful approach and still needed to cover the departure of an elite starter, introduce new players and find enough production to win more games than their predecessors. The gains were one, four and six wins across the three seasons, with the final season raising the club’s own record for a second straight year. That is a different managerial assignment from rebuilding a club near the bottom of its division, where the first measure of progress may be simply getting within reach of a winning record.

Murphy was familiar with both the organization and Counsell. He coached Counsell at Notre Dame before spending a long stretch at Arizona State, where he took the Sun Devils to the 1998 national championship game. He later managed in San Diego’s minor league system and served as the Padres’ interim major league manager in 2015. He spent eight seasons as Milwaukee’s bench coach from 2016 to 2023. The promotion made him responsible for decisions he had previously helped prepare, with relationships and knowledge of the club that an outside hire would have had to develop.

An offense that scored without leading the home-run race

Milwaukee scored 832 runs and allowed 618. The resulting plus-214 differential was the largest in baseball and surpassed the previous club record of plus 174, set by the 1982 American League champions. The 2026 Brewers won 55 games at home and 48 away. Their scoring totals also produced an expected record of 103–59 in MLB’s standings, the same as their actual record. That agreement adds context to the standings. Over the full schedule, the gap between runs scored and runs allowed was consistent with a team winning at Milwaukee’s rate.

The Brewers scored the second-most runs in the majors while hitting the second-fewest home runs, according to MLB. That combination requires a team to keep innings going and convert opportunities across more than one plate appearance. A runner who advances an extra base can score on a play that would otherwise leave him stranded. In an inning with several chances to move a runner, baserunning and contact can affect the result even if the final scoring play is a single. The total of 832 runs gives a measure of the output. A particular play can illustrate how the team got there, but the season total reflects how often it was able to create and finish those opportunities.

Milwaukee’s longest winning streak was five games. MLB identified the Brewers as the first 100-win team to get there without a longer streak. A club can reach an exceptional total through one or two extended runs of victories, or by repeatedly winning a majority of the games in shorter stretches. Milwaukee’s record shows the latter path was enough. Winning at home and away also reduced the need for a particularly favorable stretch of the schedule. The club finished with a five-game streak, including a 6–4 win over St. Louis in the finale, and ended 14 games clear in its division.

What the young pitchers had to cover

Veteran Brandon Woodruff missed most of the season and Quinn Priester missed all of it, according to MLB. Murphy started a rookie in 80 of Milwaukee’s 162 games, the largest share in the majors. The rookie count says something about the work required before the opening pitch. A manager and pitching staff must account for how long a starter can go, who is available behind him and how today’s choices affect tomorrow’s options. A short start can expose the bullpen over several days, especially if the next starter also needs early support. Milwaukee had to manage that possibility regularly.

The staff also had a starter who supplied top-end performance. Jacob Misiorowski went 16–5 with a 1.80 earned run average and 252 strikeouts in 174⅔ innings, according to Baseball-Reference. Those numbers help explain how Milwaukee could give so many starts to rookies and still prevent runs at a level that supported 103 wins. A rotation needs dependable innings and the ability to stop rallies. The contribution of one front-line pitcher can help the club cover both, while the remaining starters and relievers must sustain the run prevention on the days he does not pitch.

October put the regular season to a different test

The Brewers beat San Diego three games to one in the Division Series. Each of the first three games was decided by one run. Milwaukee then swept the Dodgers in four games in the National League Championship Series, holding them to one run in the opener and winning the second game 7–6. The scores show two different demands within the same postseason. When runs were scarce, the staff had to protect the narrowest margin. When the opponent scored six, the lineup had to keep producing over several innings. The team advanced through both kinds of game.

Milwaukee’s top seed had given it a bye through the Wild Card Series. For a team that had used rookies to start so often, that meant it could arrange its first postseason rotation without having to get through a shorter series first. Its seeding also gave it the first two games at home against San Diego, Los Angeles and Tampa Bay. Milwaukee won both opening home games in each round, and never needed a deciding game.

In the World Series, Milwaukee won the first three games, lost Game 4 and clinched the championship with a 4–1 victory over Tampa Bay in Game 5. Misiorowski threw 5⅔ scoreless innings in the clincher and catcher William Contreras received the series MVP award. The 1982 Brewers had come within one game of a championship, losing Game 7 to the St. Louis Cardinals. This time the title was secured on the road. It was the city of Milwaukee’s first World Series championship since the Braves won in 1957 and the first for the Brewers franchise, which began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969.

The franchise’s path helps explain why the 1982 comparison still matters in Milwaukee. The Pilots moved from Seattle after a single season and played their first season as the Brewers in 1970. The club’s league affiliation later changed, and in 1998 it began playing in the National League. The pennants in 1982 and 2026 therefore came in different leagues. The plus-214 run differential connects those seasons through a club record, while the victory in Game 5 gave Milwaukee a result no previous Brewers team had achieved.

The Brewers now have a benchmark that will be difficult to repeat. Winning another division title would require navigating a fresh schedule with a roster that will face new workloads, and matching 103 wins would require the club to sustain its advantage in both scoring and preventing runs. For the 2026 vote, the evidence was already on the books before San Diego came to town. A club with substantial turnover in its starting rotation had won more games than any of its predecessors, and the writers placed its manager first for a third consecutive year.

Sources

Archive photograph of Pat Murphy in Haarlem, Netherlands, July 2000. Noord-Hollands Archief / Fotoburo de Boer via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. The archived Wikimedia version is displayed without further cropping.

Talal Osman

Source: bbwaa.com