Skip Schumaker didn’t get a single vote for American League Manager of the Year, but that doesn’t mean he was miles away from the conversation.
The Rangers’ first-year skipper guided Texas to an 80-82 finish, and in a field where every manager who received a vote also took his team to the postseason, that record simply wasn’t enough. The Baseball Writers Association of America made its preference clear: winning matters, and getting to October is the quickest way to get noticed.
That’s why the gap between Schumaker and the award may not be as wide as it looks. Texas finished one game behind Houston in the division race, and the Rangers would have needed two wins to take the AL West because of the tiebreaker. That’s the kind of margin that can turn a zero-vote season into a legitimate award push in a hurry.
The standard was set by the winner, former Rangers bench coach Will Venable, who was honored after leading the White Sox to a playoff berth. Venable had been with Bruce Bochy for two seasons and was part of Texas’ 2023 World Series team before taking over in Chicago. His award case was built on a massive turnaround: the White Sox went from 40 wins in 2024 to 60 in 2025 and then 84 wins with an AL wild card berth in 2026.
Schumaker has already shown he can cash in on that kind of leap. In 2023, he took a Miami Marlins team nobody expected to reach the postseason and won the NL Manager of the Year award. But he won’t have that same underdog edge next season, especially with Texas finishing just four games behind the White Sox in the overall standings.
The voting also underscored how much the postseason still drives this award. Only six managers got votes, and all six made the playoffs.
Even Houston’s Joe Espada picked up one third-place vote after the Astros won the AL West with an 81-81 record, the first division title ever won by a .500 team. Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash finished second after leading the Rays to the best overall record in the AL.
So the path for Schumaker is pretty clear. The Rangers probably need to win the division convincingly, and they likely need a team good enough to push past 90 wins in 2027. If Chris Young can put the right pieces around him, Schumaker will have a real shot to turn a near miss into hardware.
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