Why Pat Murphy Finds His NL Manager of the Year Candidacy 'Embarrassing'

After leading the Brewers to a 93-69 record and a second straight division title in his first season at the helm, Pat Murphy was named a finalist for the National League Manager of the Year Award on Monday night. Murphy was expected to be a finalist, and he’s also the favorite to become the latest Brewer to take home offseason hardware when winners are announced on Nov. 19.

Murphy is not one to assume credit for anything, so it was unsurprising when he downplayed his consideration for the award on Sunday. He then went a step further by expressing discomfort with it, offering a valuable reminder of the disconnect between the work it takes to build and guide a winning team and how some accolades for those accomplishments are publicly bestowed.

“Any award like that is a team award,” he said. “It’s a staff award. It’s embarrassing even to be mentioned [in consideration for] it. It truly is. If you love this profession and you’re passionate about what it means, then those types of things are like it doesn’t fit with what you’re really all about.

“It just doesn’t sit as well, but I guess you gotta go through it, and I gotta deal with it,” he added.

The problem with the Manager of the Year Award is that it recognizes one individual for success that takes a village to achieve. Players have the task of doing everything they can to help their team win, and many metrics isolate their contributions. There’s no WAR for managers, leaving voters to go on character and team record relative to expectations or adversity.

The good news is that Murphy has garnered praise on those fronts, but the reality is there’s too much noise surrounding those factors to come up with a firm answer. It’s a flawed methodology that uses on-field results to evaluate the performance of one man in the dugout.

As Murphy alluded to, coaching is a group effort. The size of big-league staffs continues to grow, including in Milwaukee. In-game decision-making is a collaborative process, and it’s often increasingly specialized instructors and analysts helping players make the tweaks to unlock better versions of themselves. Even then, coaches only look good if players work on and off the field and answer the call in the moment. Having good coaches does not automatically lead to success, nor is success always indicative of good coaching.

Managers are impactful, but it’s challenging to rank them because compatibility can be just as important as skill. Most managers are gifted leaders or have the traits to blossom into one. It’s why they get the job. A fit between the manager and the rest of an organization is what leads to the most fruitful experience for all parties. A skipper need not agree with the front office or fellow coaches on everything, but they must buy into the club’s larger vision and successfully transpose it onto the field, all while maintaining cohesion throughout the clubhouse.

A successful managerial performance not only entails doing the job well, but is also about being the right person at the right time. Because the context throughout the league and an organization constantly changes, that window can be fleeting. It leads to frequent turnover among acclaimed managers.

Every NL Manager of the Year from 2019 through 2022 was dismissed by their club within the next two seasons, and 2023 winner Skip Schumaker stepped down after this year. They did not suddenly become worse managers. Instead, they were most likely dismissed or moved on because they were no longer the most compatible with the organization’s executives, coaches, and players. The need for a new voice can arise quickly.

That’s why Craig Counsell’s tenure as Milwaukee’s manager continues to stand out after his departure. The Brewers posted winning records in each of his last six full seasons after exiting a rebuild. He remained a productive voice for years while managing rosters of varying shapes, strengths, and weaknesses. Still, his underwhelming first season in Chicago illustrates the importance of having the proper infrastructure behind any manager. As Murphy said, it’s a staff endeavor.

It’s impossible to measure which manager is baseball’s best, which is rarely what the Manager of the Year Award highlights. The finalists are often managers of teams that most overperformed external expectations, or most improved their records from the previous season. While those accomplishments can reflect the manager’s efforts, that’s just a small piece of the puzzle on which baseball writers base their votes. Recent history shows that leading any team to overperform significantly is rarely a skill that one can repeatedly attribute solely to a manager. The award’s methodology is flawed, largely because there is no great alternative.

Whether Murphy wins or not, the takeaway from his first season as skipper is that he was the right manager for the 2024 Brewers. After an offseason of turnover, the club needed someone to keep this team grounded amid uncertainty. While he was understandably far from perfect in other facets of the job, Murphy was a respected and stable leader throughout a successful regular season. He’ll likely be commended for it next week.