Minnesota Twins: Paul Molitor named a finalist for American League Manager of the Year

Minnesota Twins manager Paul Molitor has been named a finalist for American League Manager of the Year.

The Minnesota Twins had a very successful campaign on all accounts in 2017 and the awards are about to pour in for the organization. It was announced on Monday that manager Paul Molitor was one of the finalists for the American League Manager of the Year award by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Molitor was also one of the finalists in his first year of managing the Twins in 2015 when his ball club was just on the outside looking in. This past season, of course, the Twins were in the playoff field… all be it for one game against the New York Yankees. That is still quite the accomplishment for the team.

Molitor has some pretty stiff competition, though. The other two finalists are Terry Francona of the Cleveland Indians and A.J. Hinch of the Houston Astros. Those two had pretty good squads. Francona and the Indians had the best record in the American League thanks to a remarkable 22-game winning streak for the Tribe. The Astros finished with the second best record in the AL and went on to win the World Series. The voting for the award was done before the postseason began.

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The case for Molitor is a solid one, of course. The Hall of Famer led his team to the playoffs after losing over 100 games the season before, which is the first time that has ever happened in the history of baseball. Molitor also did this without much of a pitching staff, without Miguel Sano for a good chunk of the second half of the season and, oh yeah, the team actually were sellers at the trade deadline.

To get your selling baseball team buy in and make the playoffs is a heck of a managing job. If Molitor wins the award or not, he got a big award already this offseason with a contract extension.

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We will soon find out if Molitor is the big winner or not. The winner will be announced on November 14.