Hi Everyone —
Before we get to today’s Why YOU Love Baseball, I’ve got a funny story: Over the weekend, we went to a birthday party for our dear friend Debby, and two of the guests were Country Music Hall of Fame legends Marty Stuart and Connie Smith.
How we all became friends with Marty and Connie is a baffling tale that would take too much time to tell.
They performed for Debby and her husband, Dan, and it was beautiful, and when they finished, Marty, out of nowhere, said, “Brother Joe, come on up here.” Then he told me to tell a story while he played his guitar.*
*The guitar he was playing, I should add, was owned and played by Hank Williams AND Johnny Cash — it’s one of the most historic guitars in American music history.
This was a complete shock to me, but what are you going to do? Marty Stuart is the very soul of country music. I mean that with all my heart; Marty played the same lead role in Ken Burns’ Country Music documentary that Buck O’Neil played in Baseball.
How lucky am I to be friends with those two men?
I went up there and tried to open up The Baseball 100 on my phone so I could read a passage. But it wouldn’t open. Neither would Why We Love Football. Kindle! So I stood there thinking, ‘Um, what am I going to do here?”
I didn’t tell it perfectly … or anything even close. But when you’re telling a story with Marty Stuart playing music in the background, you don’t have to be perfect.
Why do you love baseball?
Every day, all offseason, I will be sharing some Brilliant Reader answers. Today’s category: Quirks & Codes.
Brilliant Reader Deanna: “I love how hitters never rub the spot where the ball hits them when they foul a ball off their foot or take a fastball on the forearm.”
Brilliant Reader Brad: “Old-school pitchers who get furious when a batter ‘shows them up’ by celebrating in a way that is 100% acceptable in any other sport.”
Brilliant Reader Eleah: “The collective cheer and then aww of a crowd that thinks a routine fly ball will be a HR… and then it falls harmlessly in the outfielder’s glove. A WoooooAwwww if you will.”
Want to add yours? Email [email protected] (subject: Why I Love Baseball).
This post is free for everyone thanks to the Brilliant Readers in The Clubhouse who support our mission to make JoeBlogs ad-free, gambling-free, cynicism-free, and always joyful.
If you’d like to join The Clubhouse, this is the perfect time: We have a “Pay What You Want” offer going — and that’s literally what it is. Standard Clubhouse membership is $60/year (some pay more, some less), but through Thanksgiving, you can join for whatever fits your budget, from $1 on up.
We’d love to share the secret password. We have a lot of fun in there.
This has been the craziest offseason for baseball managers that I can remember. We’ll get into all of that in a minute, but first, I should say that the craziness continued on Tuesday when Cleveland’s Steven Vogt became the first manager in the 42-year history of the award to win back-to-back Manager of the Year Awards.
And then Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy immediately became the second.*
*I actually don’t know if I got the order right. Maybe Murphy was the first and Vogt was the second. I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Here’s the thing about this odd turn — the fact that no manager had ever before won the Manager of the Year award in consecutive years was not a bug but a feature. It was IMPOSSIBLE to win the award back-to-back because the award used to almost exclusively go to whichever manager’s team most outperformed expectations (during the regular season — the award is voted on before the playoffs).
In other words, when Joe Torre won Manager of the Year in 1998 (when the Yankees won 114 games), he was basically ineligible to win it again in 1999 … or really anytime after that. Expectations had been set. The Yankees won the World Series again in 1999; Torre finished third in the voting behind Jimy Williams (yes, Jimy Williams won a Manager of the Year Award shortly before getting fired) and Art Howe.
When the Yankees won the World Series AGAIN in 2000, Torre finished FIFTH in the Manager of the Year Award behind Jerry Manuel, Art Howe, Lou Piniella, and Mike Scioscia.
And so on. The award was never meant to reward consistent greatness. It was meant to reward one-year surges that shocked baseball fans. My favorite Manager of the Year Award was given to Kansas City’s Tony Peña in 2003, when the 100-loss Royals somehow stayed in first place until August before finishing 83-79. I love Tony, but he was a horrific manager who would follow his award by going 64-129 before quitting 33 games into the 2005 season — reportedly so he didn’t have to appear at a divorce proceeding where he was, alas, a material witness.
That was the Manager of the Year Award.
But this year, the award went to two managers who JUST WON THE THING. Cleveland won 92 games and made it to the American League Championship Series in 2024. They won 88 games in 2025 and lost in the Wild Card Series to Detroit. It’s hard to see how Steven Vogt’s team wildly outperformed expectations. But somehow they did. In years past, that award would absolutely have gone to Toronto’s John Schneider, perhaps even unanimously (the Blue Jays went from 74-88 to 94-68).
The Brewers won 93 games in 2024 before losing in the Wild Card Series. They won 97 games (best record in baseball) and lost in the NLCS in 2025. You could certainly argue that Pat Murphy’s club was better than anyone expected … but the award almost certainly would have gone to Chicago’s Craig Counsell in the old days (or maybe Cincinnati’s Terry Francona for taking the Reds to their first non-COVID playoffs since 2013).
I bring this up — because, let’s face it, nobody cares or should care about the Manager of the Year Award — only because it so perfectly fits the shifting sands of baseball managing. I sense that the entire league is searching for the meaning of baseball management in 2025. I’ll go through every manager hired this offseason in a minute so you can see what I mean, but it’s clear that nobody really seems to know what the job is now. It used to be so much clearer.
You hired an Earl Weaver or Tony La Russa for strategic brilliance.
(But now strategy mostly comes from the front office analytics team).
You hired a Billy Martin or Bobby Cox for the fight they provided.
(But now there’s replay, so nobody kicks dirt on umpires much).
You hired a Tommy Lasorda or Joe Torre to build the family atmosphere.
(But now it’s harder to keep teams together and harder to build that sort of thing).
You hired a Sparky Anderson or Dick Williams to rule the roost.
(But now it’s general managers who really rule the roost).
Obviously, I’m generalizing here — managers still provide some of these things. But less and less so all the time. Are Steven Vogt and Pat Murphy great managers? I guess so. Murphy got his managerial butt handed to him in the NLCS by Dave Roberts. Vogt’s team found a way to win 88 games with no offense (save J-Ram), which is, you know, an achievement, but also doesn’t speak too well for his ability to create offense.
Then, is it fair to even ask a manager to create offense in 2025? Probably not.
I’m not even sure what is fair to ask from a manager in 2025 — that’s the point.
Look, here are the eight managers hired this offseason in chronological order:
— The Rangers hired Skip Schumaker on October 10. He’s probably the most conventional hire of this off-season — a former scrappy ballplayer, a Manager of the Year winner in 2023 when he guided the Marlins to an 84-78 season. The Marlins lost 100 games the next year, though, and he got canned even though he was probably every bit as good a manager that second year.
— The Angels hired Kurt Suzuki on October 21. This feels like the most doomed hire of all, not just because Suzuki has no coaching or managerial experience, but all because the Angels gave Suzuki a one-year deal. Suzuki says the utter lack of faith “fuels” him, which is all well and good, but it’s basically a managerial death sentence.
— The Giants hired Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello on October 22. He was the first college coach ever hired with exactly zero professional experience, either as a player or a coach. This is all Giants President Buster Posey, who seems to deeply believe in the power of rah and also the power of rah and especially the power of rah rah when put together. I’m rooting for Tony. I’m skeptical, though.
— The Orioles hired Craig Albernaz on October 27. He was a long-time minor league player who worked his way up to Cleveland bench coach for two-time manager of the year Steven Vogt. He does have some old-school cred — he’s a former catcher, he had some success managing in the minors, and he seems to be well-liked in the clubhouse. What I like most about him, maybe, is that he withdrew his name from White Sox and Marlins’ consideration last year. This is someone who wasn’t desperate to manage ANY team … he waited for a real opportunity. And the Orioles are, indeed, a real opportunity. This was probably the best job on the market in 2025.
— The Twins hired Derek Shelton on October 30. This is so weird. Shelton got the Pittsburgh managerial job because he was Rocco Baldelli’s bench coach in 2019, when the team won 100 games. Shelton managed for 5¼ seasons in Pittsburgh, and while nobody fully blames him for this — the Pirates are a complete mess — he had losing records in every one of those seasons. Then, after that, the Twins fired Baldelli to hire Shelton. Joe Garagiola nailed it. Baseball is a funny game.
— The Nationals hired Blake Butera on October 31. Maybe he’s a managerial prodigy. In 2018, at age 25, he became the youngest manager in the minors. And now, at age 33, he’s the youngest manager in the big leagues since Frank Quilici more than a half-century ago. The Nationals also have the youngest head of baseball operations in 35-year-old Paul Toboni. Most teams bet on youth on the field (and the Nationals do have some young players), but it’s pretty new to bet on youth in the front office.
— The Braves hired Walt Weiss on November 3. He’s easily the best player hired this offseason — Weiss was a Rookie of the Year and an All-Star — and he’s also the least creative hire on the board. He’s 62 and managed four losing seasons in Colorado a decade ago. Maybe the thought in Atlanta is that the Braves will have reloaded for 2026, and they just need a steady hand on top.
— The Padres hired Craig Stammen on November 6. After Mike Shildt stepped down, it seemed likely that the team would hire someone like him, you know, a veteran presence you could count on to guide a veteran team through the season. A.J. Preller went in a completely different way, hiring longtime reliever Craig Stammen. He has no coaching experience I can find — he was officially “assistant to the coaching staff” for the Padres the last two years, but that seems to have made him a utility player who filled a dozen different roles in the front office — but the guy has spent much of his life in big league clubhouses and bullpens, so I would say he’s comfortable there. It’s a wild card choice. We’ll see.
So what’s the connecting thread? Ha, it’s a trick question: There is no connecting thread. I think teams are just trying to figure out what kind of manager works these days.
