Maddon, Banister are top skippers

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Joe Maddon won his third Manager of the Year award Tuesday and Jeff Banister his first after each guided his team on a surprising run to the playoffs.

In his initial season with the Chicago Cubs, Maddon took the National League prize following the club’s first postseason appearance since 2008. He also won in the AL with Tampa Bay in 2008 and 2011.

“It’s really good to know that what you believe in works in other places,” Maddon said during a break from his pizza-and-wine celebration with family and friends. “I didn’t tweak anything. It was the same approach.”

Maddon received 18 first-place votes and 124 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He beat out St. Louis’ Mike Matheny and the New York Mets’ Terry Collins by a surprisingly comfortable margin, becoming the seventh manager to win the award three times and the seventh to earn it in both leagues.

“To be the steward of this wonderful group of young players, I feel very fortunate,” Maddon said on MLB Network.

Banister garnered 17 first-place votes and 112 points, easily topping Houston’s A.J. Hinch and Hall of Famer Paul Molitor from the Minnesota Twins, another rookie manager.

Banister joined Houston’s Hal Lanier (1986), San Francisco’s Dusty Baker (1993), Florida’s Joe Girardi (2006) and Washington’s Matt Williams (2014) as the only men to win in their first season as a major league manager.

“To be able to have this in year one — tremendous,” Banister said. “But it means that we had a group of players that went out every single day, they showed up, they played well, they beat back some odds, they were resilient, they showed some grit and played together and really, truly played for each other on a nightly basis, and I was most proud of that.”

Texas won 88 games this season — 21 more than last year — in capturing the AL West title despite several significant injuries, including losing ace Yu Darvish for the entire season to elbow surgery.

The Rangers won their first two playoff games in Toronto before dropping the next three and getting eliminated.

“All the things that I’ve been through in my lifetime — and there were a lot of times that I asked why — well there were times this year that I knew exactly why,” the 51-year-old Banister said. “It was so that I could give another group of people some thoughts, some ideas, some toughness and some motivation to continue to press forward.”

Hinch finished second with eight first-place votes and 82 points. Molitor got two first-place votes and 33 points.

Maddon left Tampa Bay last fall and signed a $25 million, five-year contract to manage the Cubs. He took over a team that was coming off five straight losing seasons and hadn’t won a playoff game since 2003.

With his colorful, fun-loving manner, the 61-year-old Maddon led a young club to the third-best record in the majors at 97-65, good for third in the competitive NL Central behind St. Louis and second-place Pittsburgh.