Red Sox Awards History: Manager of the Year

I was a little surprised when doing research for this post that only two Red Sox managers have ever won the award.  For some reason I had it in my mind that there have been a few other winners (Joe Morgan, Terry Francona, and John Farrell all failed to win one, even though they may have deserved one each).  The Manager of the Year Award has been given out to one manager in each league since 1983.  There are no clear criteria for the award.

Here are the Red Sox winners:

JOHN McNAMARA (1986)

The Red Sox of the early 1980's were pretty boring and one-dimensional.  But it was during that time that the team was beginning to develop some truly impressive young pitching (Roger Clemens, Bruce Hurst, Oil Can Boyd, Al Nipper, John Tudor, Bob Ojeda).  And it all came together in 1986 when the team rolled through the regular season with a 95-66 record and followed that up by beating the California Angels in the ALCS and taking the World Series to Game 7 against the Mets.  McNamara made some questionable decisions in the World Series (standing by Bill Buckner at first base instead of putting in Dave Stapleton for defensive purposes), but his regular season performance was mostly impressive.

JIMY WILLIAMS (1999)

The Red Sox in 1999 finished second in the division to the Yankees, but with a very impressive 94-68 record.  The team did win the Wild Card however.  The Red Sox of that season had some terrific offense led by Nomar Garciaparra, Troy O'Leary, Brian Daubach, and others but were mostly hampered by a lack of good starting pitching, after Pedro Martinez, and troubles in the bullpen, as well as the departure of Mo Vaughn.  So the Red Sox were not really expected to do as well, but they managed to win the Wild Card anyway.  They beat the Indians in a thrilling ALDS three games to two, but lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, only winning one game.

I am really surprised Terry Francona never won the award with the Red Sox.  He has won it twice with the Indians, somehow.  Depending on how they finish, I suspect we might see Alex Cora win it this year.