Buck Showalter, who looks completely at home on a 50-year-old card design, is now a three-time Manager of the Year. The O's manager has done it in his own quirky style, of course, by winning each of his MOTY honors a full decade after the last: the first came in 1994 with the Yankees, the next in 2004 with the Rangers, and now the 2014 Orioles. He joins Tony LaRussa as the only managers to ever win the award with three different teams. There's something about Buck pulling 96 wins out of a team that got a combined 235 out of a potential 486 games played from Matt Wieters, Manny Machado, and Chris Davis that resonated with the voters, who put him atop 25 of the 30 ballots cast. He's the first Baltimore skipper to be named tops in the American League since Davey Johnson, whose personality clashes with owner Peter Angelos led to his hasty exit after piloting the club's last American League East Champion in 1997. Luckily, Showalter seems to have a much more complementary relationship with the big boss. The Orioles were a few fortunate bounces away from a World Series this year, and I have a lot of confidence that they'll get another shot at it in 2015. I'd forgotten that such a feeling was possible.
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