The Manager of the Year award is more about narrative than anything else.
Outside of wins and losses, there aren’t really statistics to gauge how well a manager is doing in a given season. It’s more about feeling, guidance and the environment they foster over the course of 162 games, a period when players and coaches see each other way more than they see their own families and friends.
Perhaps the highest compliment for a manager is, simply, that they get it. Buck Showalter, who will win the National League Manager of the Year award handily, absolutely gets it.
