Terry Francona rightfully wins the AL Manager of the Year

Terry Francona was rightfully awarded the AL Manager of the Year award on Tuesday.

The Cleveland Guardians may not have a representative in the Cy Young or MVP awards this season, nor did they win the Rookie of the Year award. An award that rightfully belonged to Steven Kwan. So for the Guardians, seeing Terry Francona win the Manager of the Year award would be the last opportunity to see the team win some postseason hardware.

So thankfully, he did.

The Guardians deserved every word they were awarded, every award they were nominated for, and every award they didn’t. Their 2022 campaign was among the best ever, simply due to what they accomplished with the pieces they had.

They defied expectations with the youngest playoff roster in league history. That’s all on coaching. The team coached up the kids well, and Francona put them in the best situations to succeed.

While the other candidates were solid options, no one did what Francona did; win the division, with the youngest team ever, in a year many expected you to not compete. It’s a masterclass in management.

Terry Francona is making a case for the Cleveland Guardians’ greatest manager of all time

When talking about Francona, it’s hard not to say he’s the greatest in franchise history. Looking at his 10 seasons in Cleveland, we see a stable franchise, with a winning culture and the ability to reload. It’s quite remarkable how good this club has been for as long as it has been.

There’s a lot of credit for that success in this last decade, but Francona maybe deserves the lion’s share of that glory. It’s a lot to do, to rework your club every few years and still be good.

It’s partly why Francona won his third Manager of the Year award. All three of them came in Cleveland, with the first in 2013, the second in 2016, and the latest, of course, this season.

It’s pretty clear that he’s been a major factor as to why the Guardians have been as good as they’ve been for as long as they’ve been.