For years, Cleveland has had a strong claim as the best organization in baseball at finding and developing managers. That claim now has company, and it comes from inside the AL Central. Will Venable of the Chicago White Sox was named American League Manager of the Year on Tuesday night, beating out Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash and Boston’s Chad Tracy. The award moved the White Sox into a tie with the Guardians for the most Manager of the Year wins by any franchise. MLB pointed it out shortly after the announcement.
“The @WhiteSox join Cleveland atop this leaderboard of teams who have won the most Manager of the Year Awards!” MLB posted.
The @WhiteSox join Cleveland atop this leaderboard of teams who have won the most Manager of the Year Awards! 🤩
(h/t @SlangsOnSports) https://t.co/FApNaXCyAz pic.twitter.com/icAsoSvURC
— MLB (@MLB) November 11, 2026
Both franchises now have six Manager of the Year awards. Cleveland’s came from Eric Wedge in 2007, Terry Francona in 2013, 2016 and 2022, and Stephen Vogt in 2024 and 2025. The White Sox winners are Tony La Russa in 1983, Jeff Torborg in 1990, Gene Lamont in 1993, Jerry Manuel in 2000, Ozzie Guillén in 2005 and now Venable. Nine other teams are tied for third with four awards each.
Venable’s win was not a landslide. He finished with 111 points and 15 of the 30 first-place votes, while Cash collected 12 first-place votes and 98 points. Tracy came in third with 47 points. Venable earned the honor by guiding Chicago to an 84-78 record, making him the first manager in history to take a team to the playoffs after back to back 100 loss seasons.
The timing will sting a bit for Guardians fans. Vogt had a chance to give Cleveland sole possession of the record with a third straight win, but he was not even named a finalist this year. He finished fourth with nine points, receiving one second-place vote and six third-place votes.
That result has drawn plenty of debate. Cleveland finished one game ahead of Venable’s White Sox to win its third straight AL Central title. The Guardians were 70-70 and three games out on Sept. 3 before going 15-6 the rest of the way, and they did it with the lowest payroll in baseball and an offense that ranked near the bottom of the league.
The two teams met again in the ALDS, and Vogt’s group came back from an 0-2 hole to win the series in five games, the first comeback of that kind in franchise history. None of that counted, though, because ballots are submitted before the postseason begins.
None of this takes away from what Venable accomplished. Turning a team that lost more than 100 games in back-to-back seasons into a playoff club is remarkable, and the voters rewarded it. Still, it says a lot about how high the bar has become in Cleveland when three straight division titles are not enough to land a manager in the top three.
The race for the record is far from over. Vogt is under contract beyond 2027, and the Guardians will enter next season as the favorites in the AL Central again. If Cleveland keeps winning the way it has under him, the franchise could reclaim sole possession of the record soon. With the White Sox now firmly back in the mix, the division race could be as heated off the field as it is on it.
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