Buck Showalter named a finalist for American League Manager of the Year

The last time an Orioles manager was named the AL Manager of the Year was 1997, when Davey Johnson won the award. With Buck Showalter being named as a finalist for this year's award on Tuesday night, he could bring the first such award to town for the first time since the last Orioles division championship. These two things are probably connected. If he does manage to win, we will (probably) escape without having the manager resign after his winning season.

As with the idea of Gold Glove "finalists", he is not a finalist in the sense that there would be an additional round of voting among only the three competitors. Rather, these are the top three finishers. The winner is already set in stone, with voting completed between the end of the regular season and the start of the postseason. The winner may be Showalter, or it may not. We will know the result for this award on November 11.

Showalter's fellow finalists are: Mike Scioscia (Angels) and Ned Yost (Royals)

Showalter is the deserving winner, a sentence I can and did write without even knowing who his competition is. Knowing that it's Scioscia and Yost, that's only even more true. We'll have to wait until next Thursday to find out if Showalter does win. That would make the third career Manager of the Year award for Showalter, who also won previously in 1994 with the Yankees and in 2004 with the Rangers. Must be something about years that end in 4.

In 2012, Showalter was the narrow runner-up to Oakland's Bob Melvin. That year, it was Oakland who was a division winner while the Orioles were the second wild card team. This year, those positions were switched.

The finalists for the other BBWAA awards were also announced on Tuesday night: each league's Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and Most Valuable Player awards. Not surprisingly, the Orioles did not have any finalists for any of those other categories, although both Adam Jones and Nelson Cruz could find themselves in the top 10 of the MVP balloting when the results are announced for that award on November 13.

The ROY winner will be announced on Monday, while the Cy Young winners will be announced on November 12.

Two writers from each city's chapter of the BBWAA vote for each of the awards. Some institutions prohibit their writers from voting for these awards out of a belief that it would affect their integrity as journalists.

The Baltimore Sun is one of those papers to prohibit voting on BBWAA awards, which usually means that the Baltimore ballot goes to either an honorary member or a national writer such as Ken Rosenthal, who's still affiliated with this chapter. MASN's Roch Kubatko is an honorary BBWAA member on the strength of his long tenure with the Sun. MASN's website on its own is not deemed worthy of the BBWAA, so we have that in common.

The Manager of the Year award was not given out by the BBWAA before 1983, so Johnson is actually the only winner in O's franchise history. Showalter would also be the second manager to win Manager of the Year with three different teams. Tony LaRussa won with the White Sox, Athletics, and Cardinals.

The full list of award finalists:

NL Rookie of the Year: Jacob DeGrom, Mets; Billy Hamilton, Reds; Kolten Wong, Cardinals
AL Rookie of the Year: Jose Abreu, White Sox; Dellin Betances, Yankees; Matt Shoemaker, Angels

NL Manager of the Year: Bruce Bochy, Giants; Clint Hurdle, Pirates; Matt Williams, Nationals

AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez, Mariners; Corey Kluber, Indians; Chris Sale, White Sox
NL Cy Young: Johnny Cueto, Reds; Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers; Adam Wainwright, Cardinals

AL MVP: Michael Brantley, Indians; Victor Martinez, Tigers; Mike Trout, Angels
NL MVP: Kershaw, Dodgers; Andrew McCutchen, Pirates; Giancarlo Stanton, Marlins