After leading the Texas Rangers to the American League West title and a 21-win improvement from 2014, Jeff Banister was named the 2015 American League Manager of the Year on Tuesday by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
The Chicago Cubs’ Joe Maddon won the National League award.
MLB announced Banister beat out fellow finalists A.J. Hinch of the Houston Astros and Paul Molitor of the Minnesota Twins to capture the award. According to T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com, the last Rangers manager to win the honor was Buck Showalter in 2004.
Banister is also the first rookie manager to win the AL award since the BBWAA started handing out the accolade in 1983, per John Blake, the Rangers’ executive vice president of communications.
Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the Houston Chronicle provided the voting breakdown:
Banister was tasked with taking over a Texas team that was coming off a 95-loss season in 2014. Things didn’t start well in 2015, as ace Yu Darvish was told in March that he needed Tommy John surgery, and the Rangers finished April with a 7-14 record.
Rangers general manager Jon Daniels told Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News before Banister was officially named a finalist for AL Manager of the Year that the slow start may have worked in his favor.
“Everyone will look at the second half,” Daniels said. “But it may be the other way around. When we were outmanned and out-talented, he set the tone. The way he handled that and how he led guys—including me—was so impressive.”
There may be something to that, since the Manager of the Year is often determined by a team’s expectations before the season starts. The Rangers looked like a mess out of the gate, but they went 81-60 after April to reach the postseason for the first time since 2012.
It’s easy to praise a manager when things are going well, but Banister had to navigate tricky waters in his first season on the job. He kept the clubhouse together and got the team to gel down the stretch.
Even though Houston was the biggest surprise in Major League Baseball during the regular season, it was the Rangers who won the AL West, going 13-6 against their in-state foe.
Hinch and Molitor were worthy challengers for Manager of the Year, but Banister was the no-doubt winner of the award.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com