CARLSBAD, Calif. -- The Athletics were one of the best stories of the 2018 season, overcoming a rash of injuries -- many of them to their starting rotation -- to win 97 games and earn an American League Wild Card berth.
For his work assembling Oakland's playoff club, Billy Beane was named the 2018 MLB Executive of the Year Monday night.
This is the first year this official award has been bestowed by MLB, the result of voting among the 30 Clubs, each of which had one vote. The runners-up for the honor were Erik Neander, Tampa Bay Rays senior vice president, baseball operations & general manager, and David Stearns, general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. Neander and Stearns tied for second in the voting.
Beane, Oakland's executive vice president of Baseball Operations, has been named Major League Executive of the Year by Baseball America two times (2002, '13), also winning The Sporting News' Executive of the Year honors twice (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.
Oakland's 97-65 record was the fourth-best record in the AL, and the Athletics reached the postseason for the fourth time in the past seven years. Over the course of the season, 21 players landed on the disabled list, including nine starting pitchers.
Oakland is 1,793-1,607 (.527) during Beane's 21-year tenure, the fourth-best record in the AL and seventh-best in the Majors during that time frame.