The Cleveland Guardians can officially say they hired the right guy to manage their ballclub.
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt has been named a finalist for American League Manager of the Year, which is the second time he’s been nominated in as many seasons as the manager for the Guardians.
Since Vogt was hired in November of 2023, his presence in the dugout has completely rerouted a Guardians team who desperately needed a skipper to fill the shoes of their previous manager, Terry Francona. It’s safe to say that Vogt has done just that in his two seasons with Cleveland.
Stephen Vogt has been named a finalist for Manager of the Year for the second time in as many seasons as our Skipper.#GuardsBall pic.twitter.com/BmKi2DAAGf
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) November 3, 2025
The Guardians performed better than most expected in their first season with Vogt, making it all the way to the AL Championship Series, falling short to the New York Yankees.
That type of result was enough to earn Vogt his first nomination for AL Manager of the Year, which he eventually was awarded for his success. This was the fastest player-to-manager to win the award in MLB history.
After winning his first Manager of the Year award, Vogt had this to say about his group of players and how they helped him in his first season.
“The closeness of this group… It’s something special,” Vogt said. “A lot of teams have a special group but this one by far is the closest group I’ve ever been around…these guys care about each other so much, I appreciate the love and support from all of them”.
Cleveland got off to a slower start in 2025 by trading away a few of their key pieces to see the play of their younger promising players, stalling out midway through the season with a mediocre record of 46-49 in July.
Vogt was able to rally the troops after another disappointing stretch in August, in which Cleveland sat with a 57-55 record before their dominant month of September.
Their momentum swing late in the summer helped propel them to erase that 15.5 game deficit, finishing with a 20-7 record and winning 17 of 19 games in September to clinch the AL Central division.
Even though the Guardians fell short to the Detroit Tigers in the Wild Card round, their incredible finish to the season is a heavy reason to believe Stephen Vogt deserves the AL Manager of the Year award for a second consecutive year.
The recipients of the Manager of the Year awards will be given out on November 11th, in which Vogt will hope to win his second against Toronto Blue Jays Manager John Schneider and Seattle Mariners Manager Dan Wilson.