Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona won the 2016 American League Manager of the Year award Tuesday.
Per the BBWAA voting results, Francona garnered 22 first-place votes and 128 total points to take home the honor, beating Texas’ Jeff Banister and Baltimore’s Buck Showalter.
If BBWAA awards also included postseason performance, Francona would have won the award by an even greater margin. His performance without star pitchers Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar for most of the playoffs was nothing short of brilliant.
While the voting only includes regular-season performance, it’s hard to argue against the work Francona did with the Indians for those 162 games, either.
Cleveland started the season facing an uphill battle. All-Star outfielder Michael Brantley began the year on the disabled list after having offseason shoulder surgery, leaving an offense that finished 18th in runs scored in 2015 without one of its best hitters.
The continued excellence of shortstop Francisco Lindor and rise of third baseman Jose Ramirez added much-needed depth to the Indians’ lineup, giving a deep and talented pitching staff the boost it needed to hand the franchise its first AL Central title since 2007.
The Indians also lost Carrasco and Salazar within eight days of each other in September as they were looking to secure a playoff berth. Rather than collapse under the pressure, Cleveland went 8-5 over the last 13 games to clinch the No. 2 seed in the AL and earn home-field advantage in the Division Series against the Boston Red Sox.
Indians general manager Mike Chernoff described what makes Francona so unique and special as a manager, per MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian:
He’s amazing. He’s incredible at in-game strategy. It’s exceptional to just watch it. He’s five steps ahead of all of us—probably everybody out there—and we get to see the full picture. That’s just a small part of it of who he is and what he does. He’s broken down barriers organizationally for us.
Francona is the straw that stirs the drink in Cleveland. He has led the franchise to four consecutive winning seasons since taking over in 2013—its longest streak of success since having eight straight seasons over .500 from 1994-2001.
This marks Francona’s second AL Manager of the Year award. He previously took home the honor in 2013 when the Indians won 92 games and earned their first playoff spot since 2007.
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