MILWAUKEE -- With Pat Murphy, the two-time National League Manager of the Year after taking home the honor for the second straight season on Tuesday, what you see is what you get.
“He’s been the same guy since he was the bench coach,” said Brewers mainstay Christian Yelich. “He’s ‘Murph.’ People that are around him all the time know what that means.”
And for those who don’t know?
“As a player,” Yelich said, “you’re never really left wondering what he’s thinking. Because he’s going to tell you whether you like it or not.”
That approach, forged in the college coaching ranks and during his eight seasons as the Brewers' bench coach, has paid off for Murphy, who has joined an elite fraternity of skippers to win the Baseball Writers' Association of America’s Manager of the Year Award in consecutive seasons. Before Tuesday, there was just the Braves’ Bobby Cox (2004-05) and the Rays’ Kevin Cash (2020-21). Now there are two more, with Murphy and his friend and Guardians manager Stephen Vogt each winning for the second straight year.
Murphy, 66, claimed the NL honor in a landslide after leading the Brewers to a franchise-record 97 victories during the regular season, which was followed by an NLDS triumph over the rival Cubs for Milwaukee’s first postseason series victory since 2018. He garnered 27 of 30 possible first-place votes and 141 total points to top Terry Francona of the rival Reds (two first-place votes, 49 points) and Rob Thomson of the Phillies (one first-place vote, 32 points).
“We had the right ‘who’ in the room,” Murphy said. “We had guys that are aware and hungry, and that makes the manager look good at the end of the day.”
Brewers skippers had finished second seven times for the BBWAA’s managerial honor, which dates back to 1983, before Murphy became the first to win in 2024. Now he is one of only 18 managers to win the award multiple times and, after only two seasons as a Major League manager, he is already halfway to the all-time record. Cox, Buck Showalter and Tony La Russa share the mark with four BBWAA Manager of the Year Awards.
Being associated with Cox was particularly meaningful, since one of his early managing jobs was with the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs in the Yankees’ farm system. Murphy grew up in Syracuse, and he recalls lingering beyond the right-field wall at Douglas MacArthur Stadium to retrieve baseballs hit during batting practice, only to be chased away by Cox and his coaches. Years later, when Murphy was head coach at Arizona State, he approached Cox in an empty dugout before a Braves-Diamondbacks game in Phoenix to tell that story, along with how much he idolized Cox for so many years. As Cox stared back silently, Murphy said, “I’ve always wanted to meet you.”
“And now you have,” Cox replied.
Murphy laughs at the memory. It’s exactly the sort of deadpan response he’s become known for in the years since.
Take the day in July when the Brewers called up Andrew Vaughn to the big leagues after losing first baseman Rhys Hoskins to a left thumb injury. Without even saying hello, Murphy told Vaughn that if he chased pitches out of the strike zone, the Brewers would send him back to Triple-A. It was the only sentence he said to Vaughn for weeks.
But Vaughn must have listened, because he hit .343 with nine homers and 35 RBIs over his first 29 games with Milwaukee.
“I’m just hopeful that I can impact players in my own little way,” Murphy said. “But there’s a lot of coaches on our staff that do it a lot better than I do. I think I get far too much credit with things like this.”
Murphy deserves some credit for leading the Brewers through a brutal spate of early-season injuries that decimated their starting rotation. Remember MLB’s Torpedo bat craze? The Brewers were on the wrong side of that, getting swept at Yankee Stadium in the opening series while serving up 15 home runs and allowing 36 total runs.
The Brewers were still three games under .500 on May 25, had already banked at least two team meetings and had zero comeback victories after trailing by multiple runs when they finally took off. They put together an eight-game winning streak that spanned the end of May and beginning of June, followed by an 11-game winning streak in July and a franchise-record 14-game winning streak in August to vault to the top of the standings.
By finishing 97-65 for a third consecutive NL Central title, Murphy & Co. joined the 1982 club as the only Brewers teams to finish with the best record in baseball.
“He's a dynamic leader, and he's involved in all the conversations we have, regularly,” Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said earlier Tuesday at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas. “I make sure that I communicate with him on what we're thinking. His input really matters a lot to me.
“I've done this for a lot of years now, and I think getting the input of the manager is really important in all of the decisions. I think Murph does a great job with us, giving us some guidance and giving his perspective on how the player will fit with the team. His input, not just with the roster, but just kind of how we play the game was really special this year.”