Torey Lovullo of the Arizona Diamondbacks has won the NL Manager of the Year award after his first full season as a big league skipper.
Lovullo won 18 of 30 first-place votes to beat out the Dodgers' Dave Roberts and Colorado's Bud Black in voting by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He had 111 total votes, followed by 55 for Roberts and 43 for Black.
The 52-year-old Lovullo guided the Diamondbacks to a 93-69 record and their first playoff spot since 2011, a year after they went 69-93.
"It's pretty special," Lovullo said in an interview on MLB Network. "It's a very, very nice feeling. There's a lot of people did a lot of great things behind the scenes to help me get here."
Lovullo was Boston's bench coach when he ran the Red Sox for 48 games in 2015 while manager John Farrell underwent cancer treatment.
Powered by Paul Goldschmidt, Jake Lamb and midseason acquisition J.D. Martinez, and led by pitchers Zack Greinke and Robbie Ray, the Diamondbacks made the playoffs this year. They beat Colorado in the NL wild-card game before getting swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Division Series.
Lovullo was credited with changing the culture in the Diamondbacks clubhouse through team building and open communication channels in the clubhouse. He said he recognized in spring training that the team was talented enough to put together a successful season, but it needed to get off to a good start to wipe away the disappointment of 2016.
"That was where I put myself out there a little bit, I wanted to change the culture, change their expectations," he said. "And I watched that during spring trining, these guys really gravitated to one another."
"Just get to the idea of raising expectations, raising the bar a little bit higher," he said. "That's what we need to do in Arizona.
"I think there's still a little bit of hurt about how this season ended, the guys are still feeling it, I think we're all eager to see what we can do in future years."
