The best manager in the NL East guides a team that is going to lose 95 games, maybe 100, perhaps more than that.
Miami’s Don Mattingly is no one’s idea of John McGraw tinged with Tony La Russa. He is the NL East’s best by comparison. During spring training, I asked executives and scouts if they agreed with my assessment, and I did not find one nay in more than a dozen responses.
Atlanta’s Brian Snitker is the reigning NL Manager of the Year, and yet the sense was of a good-guy organization man who fell into magic with Ronald Acuna and Ozzie Albies, rising concurrently with the Nationals and Mets stumbling.