Oakland A's Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations, Billy Beane, has been named the 2018 MLB Executive of the Year. This is the first year this official award has been bestowed by MLB.
The A's finished the 2018 season with a 97-65 record-fourth best in baseball-after finishing last in the AL West each of the previous three seasons. The club reached the postseason for the fourth time in the last seven years despite losing 21 players-including nine starting pitchers-to the disabled list.
Beane has been named Major League Executive of the Year by Baseball America two times (2002; 2013) and The Sporting News Executive of the Year twice as well (1999; 2012). He also earned MLB.com's Greatness in Baseball Yearly (GIBBY) Award as the 2012 MLB Executive of the Year and the 2012 Legacy Awards' Rube Foster Award as AL Executive of the Year, presented by the Negro League Baseball Museum.
Under his watch, the A's have compiled a 1793-1607 (.527) record over the last 21 years, which is the fourth-best record in the American League and seventh best in all of baseball during that time frame. The A's have six American League West titles (2000; 2002-03; 2006; 2012-13) and have secured three AL Wild Card spots (2001; 2014; 2018) during that span. His teams have posted 90 or more wins in nine of the last 19 years. The A's nine postseason appearances since the 2000 season are sixth most among all Major League teams, trailing only New York-AL (15), St. Louis (12), Los Angeles-NL (10), Boston (10) and Atlanta (10).
Beane joined the A's front office staff in 1990 as the club's Major League advance scout. In 1993, former A's president and general manager Sandy Alderson promoted him to Assistant General Manager. Alderson handed over his general manager's duties to Beane on Oct. 17, 1997. Beane was then promoted to Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations on Oct. 5, 2015.