Pat Murphy, who guided the Milwaukee Brewers to the first World Series title in franchise history, was again named the winner of the BBWAA’s National League Manager of the Year Award on Tuesday, becoming the first to win it in three consecutive seasons.
Will Venable of the Chicago White Sox, in his second year as skipper after losing 102 games in 2025, won the American League award.
Murphy beat out finalists Don Mattingly of the Philadelphia Phillies and Walt Weiss of the Atlanta Braves, becoming the first to win three straight since the award began in 1983. Murphy had 20 first-place votes and earned 124 total points, well ahead of Weiss (seven first-place votes, 86 points) and Mattingly (one first-place vote, 25 points). Padres manager Craig Stammen finished fourth (two first-place votes, 24 points).
Venable won the AL award with 15 first-place votes and 111 points, edging out Kevin Cash of the Tampa Bay Rays, who had 12 first-place votes and 98 total points. Chad Tracy of the Boston Red Sox received three first-place votes and finished third with 47 total points.
Voting is conducted before the postseason, but Murphy led the Brewers to a franchise-record 103 wins as the Brewers topped the majors in that category for the second consecutive season.
Three years ago, the Brewers had a big decision to make. Longtime manager Craig Counsell had departed for a big contract with the division rival Chicago Cubs. Rather than hire a younger, inexperienced manager — as was the general trend — the Brewers promoted Murphy, who was about to turn 65 and had been Counsell’s bench coach the previous eight seasons.
It has proved to be the right move.
The Cubs were the consensus NL Central favorites heading into the season after the Brewers traded ace Freddy Peralta in the offseason and lost Jose Quintana in free agency. Quinn Priester then missed the entire season with an injury.
That meant the top returning pitcher in wins from the 2025 staff was veteran Brandon Woodruff with seven — and he’d end up making just nine starts. Relying on a breakout season from likely NL Cy Young Award winner Jacob Misiorowski and deploying a major league-high 80 starts from rookie pitchers, the Brewers instead coasted to their fourth straight division title, ascending to the top spot for good on May 19.
When their lead dropped to three games in mid-August, the Brewers responded with back-to-back wins over the Los Angeles Dodgers behind Misiorowski and Logan Henderson (who beat Tarik Skubal), and a 22-0 thrashing of the Seattle Mariners.
From Aug. 15 through the end of playoffs, the Brewers went 39-13.
“They went after it,” Murphy said after winning the World Series. “They were on common mindset. They cared about each other. They set standards. They were undaunted when things weren’t going well.”
At age 67, Murphy is a combination of tough love and quips. During the season, he pulled Cooper Pratt from a game in August after the rookie failed to hustle to second base on a bloop single down the right-field line. Late in the season, he pinch-hit for team leader Willson Contreras after the catcher had earlier failed to run hard on a grounder to shortstop.
It works.
“I love the guy. I love that he’s honest,” Contreras said after winning World Series MVP honors.
Murphy spent years as the head coach at Notre Dame and then Arizona State before entering the professional ranks, including a stint as interim manager for the San Diego Padres in 2015 before joining Counsell’s staff.
“I’m just really, really grateful. Really thankful that we did it,” Murphy said after the World Series win. “Like, who believed it? There’s so many things that led up to it now that I look back and see the years of getting eliminated or being beaten last year by the Dodgers. That was a blessing because we learned from it and we grew, and we came in with a different attitude. We came in with a spirit about us, and we weren’t going to be denied.”
Mattingly replaced Rob Thomson as Phillies manager after the team got off to a 9-19 start and the Phillies went 79-55 the rest of the way to finish second in the NL East behind Weiss’ Braves, who went 94-68 in his first year at the helm after Brian Snitker retired.
Venable, two years after the franchise lost a record 121 games, led the surprising Sox to an 84-78 record and a wild card.
Cash, the longest tenured manager in the majors with 12 seasons in Tampa, led the Rays to an AL-best 98-64 record after the club went just 77-85 in 2025. It was the Rays’ second AL pennant under Cash’s watch.
Tracy, like Mattingly, took over early in the season after the Red Sox fired Alex Cora following a 10-17 start. The Red Sox went 77-58 under Tracy, including a historic midseason turnaround that featured a 32-5 stretch.
