Any other season, Alex Cora and Kevin Cash would have been worthy recipients of the American League Manager of the Year Award, which will be handed out Tuesday.
Cora led the Red Sox to a franchise-record 108 wins and a World Series championship in his first season on the job. Cash guided the Rays to a surprising 90-win season, marking a 10-win improvement from 2017.
But in 2018, Bob Melvin was in a league of his own.
The A's manager took a team with the lowest payroll in baseball and led it to the fourth-best record in the league at 97-65, a remarkable 22-game improvement from the previous year. Perhaps most impressive, he essentially did it without a starting rotation.
Injuries forced Melvin to use 15 different starting pitchers, an A's franchise record. Oakland lost a whopping 10 starters -- Sean Manaea, Jharel Cotton, A.J. Puk, Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson, Andrew Triggs, Daniel Gossett, Paul Blackburn, Daniel Mengden and Kendall Graveman -- to injury, seven of them season-ending. Yet somehow the A's kept winning.
Melvin refused to let his players use the injuries as an excuse. He adapted, and so did they. Melvin relied more heavily on his bullpen, often pulling his starting pitcher before the fifth inning. He also managed his position players brilliantly, using his entire bench and keeping everyone focused whether they started or not.
Before the season, not even the most optimistic A's fan could have expected a playoff berth. Oakland was coming off three consecutive last-place finishes in the AL West. Sure, the team had talent, but it was young and inexperienced, probably two years away from contention. Then Melvin found the perfect balance between fun and focus, demanding hard work from his players while still allowing them to be themselves.
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A Manager of the Year nomination is nothing new for Melvin, who already has won the award twice, first in 2007 with the Diamondbacks and again in 2012 with the A's. He's one of just 14 managers to win the award multiple times, and one of six to do it in each league.
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Cora likely will be Melvin's toughest competition this year, but just look at the talent on the Red Sox's roster. Boston entered the season with the second-highest payroll in baseball at over $206 million, more than tripling Oakland's $63 million.
Yes, Cora won the ultimate prize with a World Series trophy. But Manager of the Year is a regular-season award, and Melvin's accomplishments then were unparalleled.
