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The season isn’t quite over, but it’s awards season for some, nonetheless. Brian Snitker, as it turns out, has won Sporting News’ NL Manager of the Year award for a second consecutive season. Don’t just take my word for it:
Brian Snitker has been voted the 2019 Sporting News NL Manager of the Year.
— Sporting News MLB (@sn_mlb) October 23, 2019
The @Braves skipper is the fifth manager to win in consecutive seasons.https://t.co/P5W7QOLrIX
Note that this isn’t the “big” or “official” Manager of the Year award (that’s a weird thing to type) — that one is the BBWAA award, which Brian Snitker also won last year for the NL, and tends to be granted at some point in mid-November. Still, you figure the Braves’ skipper has a decent chance at that one too, as his team once again substantially outperformed expectations and rather handily won a division crown in what was supposed to be a nasty scrum all the way to the end.
Kevin Cash was the corresponding winner of this particular award for the AL; it’ll be (very slightly) interesting to see what happens with the BBWAA version of the same hardware in both leagues.
Note that of the five times in history that Sporting News has given the award to the same manager in consecutive seasons, one was to Bobby Cox, over and over, as he received the (metaphorical?) hardware in each season from 2002 through 2005. Craig Counsell, who co-won the NL honors with Snitker last season, was another consecutive winner for Milwaukee, having been named the best skipper in 2017 as well.