Rick Renteria, fired by the White Sox after guiding them to a 35-25 record and the team’s first postseason appearance since 2008, was named a finalist for the American League Manager of the Year award Monday.
David Ross, who led the Cubs to a 34-26 mark in his first season at the helm on the North Side, is a finalist for the National League award.
The Rays’ Kevin Cash and the Blue Jays’ Charlie Montoyo are the other AL manager finalists in voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Don Mattingly of the Marlins, Jayce Tingler of the Padres and Ross were the top vote-getters among NL managers.
First baseman Jose Abreu of the Sox (AL MVP), right-hander Yu Darvish of the Cubs (NL Cy Young) and center fielder Luis Robert of the Sox (AL Rookie of the Year) also finished in the top three. Votes were cast after the regular season.
The Sox took a significant jump under Renteria in 2020 after going 72-89 in 2019. In the fourth year of the team’s rebuild, the Sox tied for second place in the AL Central, but in a surprise move, Renteria was let go after they lost eight of their last 10 games in the regular season before dropping the best-of-three wild-card series to the Athletics. Tony La Russa was hired as Sox manager Thursday.
Ross, who replaced Joe Maddon, led the Cubs to the fourth-best record in the NL and took them to their first postseason berth since 2018 and first NL Central title since 2017.
Abreu, Indians third baseman Jose Ramirez and Yankees infielder DJ LeMahieu are the finalists for the AL Most Valuable Player of the Year award.
Darvish is a finalist with the Reds’ Trevor Bauer and the Mets’ Jacob deGrom.
Robert, Mariners outfielder Kyle Lewis and Astros right-hander Cristian Javier are the top three AL rookies.
Also announced:
NL MVP: Manny Machado, Padres; Freddie Freeman, Braves; Mookie Betts, Dodgers.
AL Cy Young: Shane Bieber, Indians; Kenta Maeda, Twins; Hyun Jin Ryu, Blue Jays.
NL Rookie of the Year: Alec Bohm, Phillies; Jake Cronenworth, Padres; Devin Williams, Brewers.
Abreu stands to have the best chance of the Sox’ and Cubs’ nominees to win. He played in all 60 games of the abbreviated season and was first in the AL in hits (76), RBI (60), slugging (.617), extra-base hits (34) and total bases (148) and was second in home runs (19).
Abreu is looking to join Frank Thomas (1993, 1994), Dick Allen (1972) and Nellie Fox (1959) as the only Sox to win the MVP award.
Darvish was 8-3 with a 2.01 ERA. Robert batted .233/.302/.436 with 11 homers, 33 RBI and nine stolen bases and is a finalist among center fielders for a Gold Glove Award, which will be announced Tuesday.
Rookie of the Year (Monday), Manager of the Year (Tuesday), Cy Young (Wednesday) and MVP (Thursday) winners will be announced next week.
