The Baseball Writers Association of America votes have been in since the regular season ended, but on Tuesday night the votes became public and it was a runaway win for Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy in the National League Manager of the Year race. But it was Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona who came in second place by a wide margin.
Pat Murphy is now 2-for-2 in winning the award in his career. Francona, who has won the award three times in the American League, was in his first season with the Reds in 2025. He received two first place votes, nine second place votes, and 12 third place votes.
Cincinnati finished 83-79 under Terry Francona in 2025 and in this past season that was good enough for a tie for the 6th best record in the National League. It was also, thanks to a tiebreaker, good enough to qualify as the league’s final wild card team. The Reds lost two games to none in the first round of the playoffs to the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
During the season Francona picked up his 2000th career win in what his 24th season serving as a manager. He’s 2033-1751 all time. It was his 18th winning season as a manager, and his 18th winning season out of his last 20. He didn’t have a winning season in four years with Philadelphia to being his career. In 2004 he returned as a manager, this time in Boston and he didn’t have a losing season again until 2021 with Cleveland. In two of his last three years there he was below the .500 mark, and then retired after the 2023 season to deal with some health issues. After a year away he opted to return and was hired by the Reds.
Among the thirty voters of the award it was the Alanis Thames of the Associated Press (Miami) and Justin Guerriero of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that placed Francona at the top spot on their ballot. From the nine votes he would wind up getting for second place, two of them were from the Cincinnati votes in Gary Schatz and the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jason Williams.
There were also a few writers who didn’t have Francona on their ballot. For the Manager of the Year Award each voter chooses a top three. Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com, Jack Etkin (freelance), Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, Charlotte Varnes of The Athletic, Jose Negron of DK Pittsburgh Sports, John Maffei of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle, and Savannah McCann of Baseball America all left Francona off of their ballot.