Rob Thomson finishes fifth in Manager of the Year voting

Phillies manager Rob Thomson finished fifth in National League Manager of the Year voting, Major League Baseball announced Tuesday night.

The Phillies’ interim-turned-full-time skipper actually got quite a few second-place votes, but still finished behind the winner in Buck Showalter, along with Dave Roberts, Brian Snitker and Oli Marmol:

Despite his role in turning the struggling Phillies around and taking the franchise to its first postseason since 2011, Thomson was not named a finalist for the award last Monday. Nominations instead went to Roberts, Snitker and Showalter.

Those three fronted the National League’s 100-plus-win teams in 2022, so it’s not as if they were undeserving of recognition. But it does raise questions as to whether the Manager of the Year Award is given to simply the best (or one of the best) team’s skipper, or whether it’s handed to the manager who voters see as most responsible for his team’s success.

If the latter, it would be hard to argue against Thomson, who took over with the Phillies at 22-29 upon Joe Girardi’s firing.

Thomson’s 65-46 record since his June 3 promotion trailed the aforementioned finalists, but his taking over is easy to identify as a pivotal stretch in the Phillies’ midseason turnaround (which included an eight-game winning streak to begin his managerial tenure).

However, perhaps Thomson’s late promotion factored into his omission. As well as the Phillies performed under his guidance, he was only the manager for 111 games, while everyone else who earned votes was there for all 162.

In any case, it’s worth noting that ballots were cast before the start of the postseason, so the Phillies’ Cinderella World Series run didn’t factor into the vote.

Thomson’s efforts (in the regular season and Wild Card Series) earned him a promotion to full-time manager as well as a two-year extension on Oct. 10.

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