Martinez doesn’t need Manager of the Year Award to validate his inspirational and championship season
Dave Martinez delivered when it mattered most, avoiding the unemployment line that many fans and so-called experts expected to find him after the Washington Nationals began the season with a 19-31 record.
Despite guiding the Nationals to the most magical and fruitful season in franchise history, Martinez wasn’t even one of the three finalists for the National League Manager of the Year Award.
Craig Counsell of the Brewers, Mike Shildt of the Cardinals and Brian Snitker, of the Braves are the three finalists for the NL Manager of the Year Award, which will be announced Tuesday by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Martinez will settle for the World Series title the Nationals won over the Astros in an exciting seven-game Fall Classic.
Two BBWAA members from each NL city voted for the NL Manager of the Year Award, turning in their ballots before the playoffs started. Here at La Vida Baseball, though, we don’t have to submit our ballots for the LVB Manager of the Year Award until after the season, and Martinez was the unanimous selection after becoming the second consecutive manager of Puerto Rican descent to lead his team to the World Series title. He follows Alex Cora of the Red Sox.
In many ways, the son of natives of Puerto Rico embodies the Latino struggle in baseball and beyond.
He served as a bench coach for 10 seasons for one of the most accomplished managers of this generation with the Tampa Bay Rays and then the Chicago Cubs before he finally got his managerial shot when he was 53 years old.
From 2008 through 2017, Martinez served as Joe Maddon’s bench coach, helping the Cubs finally break through for their long-awaited title in 2016.
Martinez should have gotten his shot much earlier, but baseball tends to work slowly when it comes to minority managerial hiring.
Even worse, the leash is short. Second chances are rare for Latino managers, and third chances are practically impossible.
Unlike the majority of rookie Latino managers throughout baseball history, Martinez landed his first managerial job with plenty of expectations after replacing Dusty Baker. He was expected to win with a roster that included once-a-generation talents such as Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg to go along with former Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer and Anthony Rendon.
The Nationals were underwhelming in 2018, Harper’s last season in DC and Martinez’s first. Then they stumbled badly early in the 2019 season, going 19-31 after 50 games.
“People said we were 19-31 and they wanted to fire Davey and they wanted to trade everybody,” Rendon said. “They wanted a clean sweep of the whole front office or whatever it might be. We didn’t worry about that stuff.
“We just kept on grinding, worried about the 25 guys that were in that locker room with us, and we ended up turning it around and ended up flipping the script on everybody else.”
That’s exactly what the Nationals did with Martinez’s guidance.
Martinez’s road to the title can serve as an important lesson to Latinos everywhere. Despite the critics and the struggles, Martinez never stopped working.
He never gave up hope even when others gave up on him and his Nationals.
They went from 19-31 to the Wild Card, when they came from behind to beat the Brewers to advance to the Division Series. Then Martinez’s men pulled off a stunning upset in the Division Series over the heavily favored Dodgers, who finished with the best record in the NL.
Then they swept NL Central champion Cardinals, making it look easy along the way. They lost three in a row at Nationals Park in the World Series, returning to Houston’s Minute Maid Park with a daunting three games to two deficit in the best-of-seven World Series against the favorite Astros.
Sure enough, Martinez guided the Nationals to a pair of victories on the road to cap the first Fall Classic in history in which the home team lost each game.
“This year, I can honestly say nothing would have surprised me,” Martinez said. “I mean, from where we started, traveling, ‘boos,’ you name it, we’ve been through a lot.
“But like I said before, these guys, we stuck together. They believed in each other. I believed in them.”
The Nationals did it because they had a manager who embodied the Latino spirit, the determination to fight and keep working despite the naysayers.
He set an example for Latinos in an era when we’re often overlooked or ridiculed by the highest office in the land. Martinez was supposed to be fired in May, the critics said. He didn’t listen, and now he’s a champion. That’s worth much more than the Manager of the Year Award.
