Five minutes into their first videoconference meeting with Stephen Vogt two years ago, Cleveland’s brass fought the urge to fast forward to the end of a painstaking hiring process. He was engaging, open-minded and passionate.
“There was a feeling,” GM Mike Chernoff recalled one day last year, “of, ‘Wow, this could be the guy.’”
That first inclination proved prescient. Not only did Vogt land the Guardians’ managerial gig, but now, after two seasons at the helm and two American League Central titles, he also boasts two AL Manager of the Year awards.
Vogt is the fourth manager to win the honor in consecutive seasons, joining the Tampa Bay Rays’ Kevin Cash (2020-21), Atlanta Braves’ Bobby Cox (2004-05) and Pat Murphy, who won the NL Manager of the Year for the second time on Tuesday night. Vogt is the first to do it in his first two seasons as a big-league skipper. His .557 win percentage ranks third among all managers in Cleveland’s 125-year history as an AL franchise, behind only Hall of Famer Al Lopez and Ossie Vitt. Vogt claimed 17 of the 30 first-place votes and finished with 113 points, just ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays’ John Schneider (91). Seattle Mariners skipper Dan Wilson (50 points) finished third.
Cleveland’s hiring of Terry Francona after the 2012 season was a breeze: a couple phone calls, one day of interviews, a dinner at Lola on E. 4th Street just a couple of blocks from Progressive Field. Those present insist Francona spilled some food on his shirt, like always. The club spoke with only one other candidate, Sandy Alomar Jr.
The process to replace Francona after he stepped aside in October 2023 was far more deliberate. The Guardians interviewed a host of contenders over several weeks until they called Vogt to offer him the job. Vogt and his wife, Alyssa, were driving to their farm in Olympia, Wash., to shovel some manure. They pulled over on the side of the road and Vogt, 12 months after retiring as a player, accepted Cleveland’s manager gig.
Vogt had impressed them in Zoom conferences and in a daylong crash course at the team’s ballpark offices, where he completed a litany of mock scenarios: delivering a spring training speech to the organization, answering questions at a press conference, engaging in difficult conversations with players and sizing up which strategies to deploy in various game situations. It was a day spent trying to replicate everything a manager might encounter over the course of a season.
In two years as Cleveland’s manager, Vogt has encountered more than he ever could have imagined.
The 2024 Guardians cruised to an AL Central crown, despite incorporating a new coaching staff, losing their ace to elbow surgery a week into the season and fending off competition in a division that placed three teams in the playoffs. They advanced to the ALCS before running out of steam against the New York Yankees.
Vogt could write a dissertation on handling adversity after the 2025 season. A team with lofty expectations was 40-48 in early July after suffering through a 10-game skid. Toward the end of the losing streak, the Guardians lost Luis Ortiz, who landed on administrative leave as the league launched an investigation into what has since been revealed to be an alleged pitch-rigging scheme. That development shocked the clubhouse and tested the manager. Three weeks later, closer Emmanuel Clase joined Ortiz on the sideline as part of the investigation. Now, the two pitchers are facing up to 65 years in prison if charged with wire fraud and several counts of conspiracy.
To steer his group out of the muck, Vogt insisted on a calm, steady approach, rather than repeated chair-throwing and vocal cord-fraying tirades.
He was right.
The Guardians stormed back in September and made major-league history by erasing a 15 1/2-game deficit to capture another division title. They reached the postseason despite an offense that ranked near the bottom of the league in every worthwhile category and despite missing Ortiz, Clase, Shane Bieber and Ben Lively on the pitching side.
On the middle shelf on the left side of a back wall unit in Vogt’s office at Progressive Field rests a firefighter helmet, meant to resemble how, as Vogt described during his first spring training as manager, he feels like he’s constantly putting out fires.
“There were a whole host of things that he and we had to navigate that were, in some cases, uncharted,” said team president Chris Antonetti. “We experienced things this year and adversity that no one else has ever encountered, at least in baseball. His steady and consistent presence … it was incredible. There is no way we would have gotten as far as we did or won as many games as we did without Stephen’s leadership.”
Vogt seemed like a natural fit from the beginning. His father, Randy, instilled in him at a young age to treasure his teammates’ triumphs as much or more than his own. That paved the way for him to assume a leadership role on every team that employed him.
He learned from coaches along his journey, too. When he was a part-time catcher in the lower levels of the minors in his mid-20s, he soaked up wisdom from now-Kansas City Royals manager Matt Quatraro, and longtime Tampa Bay Rays evaluators Jimmy Hoff and Mitch Lukasiewicz. When shoulder surgery wiped out his 2018 season in Milwaukee, he turned a lost year into an apprenticeship as he shadowed manager Craig Counsell and bench coach (and fellow 2025 Manager of the Year winner) Murphy.
Vogt was the everyman who somehow pieced together a decade-long career in the big leagues. He made a pair of All-Star teams and reveled in the pressure of October baseball. He won a World Series with the Braves in 2021. He also endured the frustration and shock of being traded, being designated for assignment and being overlooked.
All of those experiences, the peaks and the valleys, prepared him for the manager role, even with just one season separating his playing career from his job with the Guardians. He was, in fact, “the guy.” And now he has a pair of Manager of the Year awards to prove it.
“This one is so gratifying because I know how hard we worked,” Vogt said Tuesday after winning the award. “I know how hard it was to show up every day at times (and be) positive, to keep pushing and to keep that smile on your face. It’s a choice every single day that you make when you show up to work, if you want to be in a good mood or a bad mood. It’s up to you. Our entire group showed up in a good mood, believing we were going to win, even in the midst of some rough stretches.
“We knew it was going to turn at some point. We had to make it turn. It’s super rewarding. You feel the entire emotion of the year when you hear your name announced, because it’s a nod to the entire organization.”