One took a special team all the way to the first World Series championship in franchise history. The other piloted an impressive turnaround and made some unexpected noise in the postseason. Their standout leadership earned them the 2026 Baseball Writers’ Association of America Manager of the Year Awards, which were announced Tuesday night on MLB Network.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy was named the National League Manager of the Year, becoming the first skipper to win the award in three consecutive seasons. White Sox manager Will Venable, meanwhile, claimed the American League honor for the first time.
Murphy led the Brewers to an MLB-best 103 wins in the regular season before Milwaukee dominated in the postseason, beating the Padres, Dodgers and Rays to claim the club’s first World Series title. He was named on all 30 ballots, earning 20 first-place votes, seven second-place votes and three third-place votes to finish with 124 voting points. Braves manager Walt Weiss was second with 86 voting points, while Phillies skipper Don Mattingly was third at 25, one ahead of Padres manager Craig Stammen.
Murphy became the 10th skipper to win at least three Manager of the Year Awards, with Buck Showalter, Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa leading the way with four apiece. The 67-year-old, who underwent back surgery in June, spoke with MLB Network on Tuesday from a hospital bed after a recent hip replacement.
“I’m really grateful,” Murphy said. “I don’t necessarily think I’m deserving, to be quite honest with you. It’s more a matter of just keeping everything in perspective, but I’m super, super grateful.
Venable, who took over the White Sox following a 41-121 campaign in 2024, led Chicago to 84 regular-season wins, a playoff berth and an AL Wild Card Series victory over the Astros in 2026. He earned 15 first-place votes to finish with 111 voting points, just ahead of Rays manager Kevin Cash (98). Red Sox manager Chad Tracy, who like Mattingly in Philadelphia took over midseason and led his club to a playoff berth, finished third with 47 points.
After a nine-year career as an outfielder for the Padres, Rangers and Dodgers, Venable -- the son of longtime big leaguer Max Venable -- worked as a coach for the Cubs and Red Sox before being hired by the White Sox for his first managerial job.
“When I was done playing, it was about giving back,” Venable said.
He’s given back plenty in just two years with the White Sox, becoming the club’s first Manager of the Year since Ozzie Guillén in 2005 and its sixth overall. Chicago went 60-102 in Venable’s first season at the helm, a 19-win improvement on the prior year but still nowhere near where the club wanted to be. Things changed in a hurry under Venable in 2026, an improvement the White Sox skipper credited to putting the right roster together. During the offseason, the acquisitions of players such as Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami and lefties Anthony Kay and Sean Newcomb paid dividends as the White Sox earned the third AL Wild Card berth.
“You can have the best front office, the best staff; you can support them the best you can,” Venable said. “At the end of the day, it’s about getting guys that want to go and compete, so I think it really starts with the players.”
The Brewers certainly had the right players in place: They won the NL Central for the fourth straight season and the third time in three years under Murphy, who had been the club’s bench coach under Craig Counsell. Milwaukee won a franchise-record 97 games in 2025 and smashed that mark in ’26 with 103 regular-season victories before going 11-2 in a dominant postseason run and winning its first World Series.
“It’s kind of a feeling of, ‘Wow, this really did happen,’” Murphy said.
The White Sox rode a similar feeling all the way to the ALDS, where they won the first two games against the Guardians on the road before a Cleveland comeback ended the year on a heartbreaking note. While outsiders didn’t expect much from Chicago in 2026, Venable and his players could tell early on that things were different.
“This group in Spring Training developed a belief in themselves, a belief in each other, and then went out and did it,” Venable said. “I thought it was really cool throughout the summer to watch these guys go out and execute on the field and watch the fans come and support that growth and that development and create the environment for our players to go out there and do some special things.”