National Sports

Brewers’ Murphy wins 3rd straight top manager honor

When setting a date for hip replacement surgery, Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy made sure to schedule it after the World Series.

What he didn’t consider was when the NL Manager of the Year would be announced.

That’s why Murphy was in a hospital bed Tuesday night recovering from an operation on his right hip when he became the first skipper from either league to win the award three years in a row.

“I’ve got nothing to do. I’m just sitting here,” Murphy quipped at the end of a call with reporters.

The award came less than two weeks after the Brewers won their first World Series title, and a day after the manager’s surgery in Milwaukee.

“The doctor gave me some dates and I just picked a date one day, and I had no idea that it was going to coincide. I wasn’t thinking in those terms,” said Murphy, who turns 68 on Nov. 28. “I was just thinking about what we had, task at hand. I mean, I probably picked it a month ago and obviously I picked it after the World Series was done, but I didn’t know we were going to be in the World Series at that time. But I thought it was a safe date to do it.”

Will Venable won AL Manager of the Year after his Chicago White Sox became the first major league team to reach the playoffs following consecutive 100-loss seasons. Only the third of three straight came under Venable, who took over in 2025. Chicago went 84-78 this year.

Balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America was conducted before the postseason, and results were announced Tuesday night.

Milwaukee has won the NL Central in all three years with Murphy as manager after he spent eight seasons on Craig Counsell’s coaching staff.

The Brewers led the majors this year with a franchise-record 103 wins during the regular season, then in the playoffs swept the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series and beat Tampa Bay in a five-game World Series.

Murphy survived a heart attack in August 2020 that happened on the day of a Milwaukee workout.

Vote totals

Murphy got 20 of 30 first-place votes and finished with 124 points. Atlanta’s Walt Weiss came in second with seven first-place votes and 86 points, while Philadelphia’s Don Mattingly was the other NL finalist and came in third. Mattingly got one first-place vote, and San Diego’s Craig Stammen got the remaining two.