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Two years ago, Stephen Vogt was a player. Now, he’s a finalist for the BBWAA’s American League Manager of the Year Award.

Not only is he a finalist, Vogt’s the favorite to win. He’s up against Kansas City’s Matt Quatraro, who led his team to a successful 86-win season after losing 106 games in 2023, and Detroit’s A.J. Hinch, who helped his team come out of nowhere and make an unexpected playoff push in the final weeks of the regular season.

Both have a great case worthy of the hardware. But neither case is quite as substantial as Vogt’s first-year résumé.

That's right, let’s not forget this was Vogt's first season as a manager at any level. If he wins the award, it’ll be the fastest any skipper has gone from player to Manager of the Year, topping Joe Girardi, who took the honors in 2006 after playing in ’03.

The Manager of the Year vote is all about narrative. It’s usually given to the skipper of a team that exceeded preseason expectations. The Guardians were coming off of a sub-.500 season. They hardly made any changes to their roster over the winter. Their new manager was assumed to be likely to stumble through his first year in this role. It just seemed inevitable that this would be a clunky season.

It didn’t get easier through Spring Training or the early weeks of the regular season, either. The Guardians lost two of their main relievers in James Karinchak and Trevor Stephan for the season. Outside of Emmanuel Clase and Sam Hentges (who also ended up missing most of the year due to injury), Cleveland didn’t have many experienced relievers to turn to.

One week into the regular season, the team lost its ace, Shane Bieber. By the All-Star break, two of the other hurlers Cleveland hoped would step up to help fill the massive void left by Bieber were sent to Triple-A Columbus because they were underperforming. Triston McKenzie couldn’t figure out his command. Logan Allen wasn’t as sharp as he was in 2023. Both needed time in the Minors to get back on track. Allen made a couple spot starts for the Guardians after his demotion, but McKenzie never returned.

And still, Vogt helped his team persevere.

He pieced the bullpen together with former starters, rookies and only a few experienced veterans and utilized them perfectly to create a group that had the fourth-best bullpen ERA since 1995. He was aggressive in turning to his bench, picking the perfect times to call on pinch-hitters.

All of this led to the Guardians securing the AL Central division title.

For a guy who was supposedly learning on the fly with zero prior managerial experience, Vogt pushed all the right buttons and helped his club exceed all expectations. And if the narrative is supposed to determine whether a manager wins this award, he has quite the convincing story to come out on top.

“It's really fun,” Vogt said of all three finalists being from the AL Central. “We all played very good baseball, we all grind, we all have to work, we have to make things happen. And it's really fun to see both Matt Quatraro and A.J. Hinch be recognized in that way. … Our division went down to the wire. It was a dog fight and none of the teams went away, and it was a really tough year and everybody played us tough. So, [I'm] really happy for them and it's a really cool honor.”