Walt Weiss Comes Up Short of MLB Honor During 1st Year as Atlanta Braves Manager

Walt Weiss guided the Atlanta Braves to a division title in his first season as manager and still came up short of the award that recognizes it.

Weiss finished second in NL Manager of the Year voting, earning 86 points on seven first-place votes, 16 second-place votes and three third-place votes. Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy won the award with 124 points and 20 first-place votes.

Philadelphia’s Don Mattingly finished third with 25 points. Voting took place before the postseason, so Milwaukee’s World Series championship did not factor into the result.

The case for Weiss was real. He took over a Braves team that went 76-86 under Brian Snitker in 2025 and missed the playoffs. In his first season, Atlanta finished 94-68, won the NL East by six games over Philadelphia and reached the NLDS before falling to the Dodgers in four games. That is an 18-win improvement, a division title and a postseason series win in year one.

He did it without a full roster. Spencer Strider made eight starts before elbow inflammation shut him down in June. Spencer Schwellenbach did not pitch at all after fracturing his right elbow in June 2025 and dealing with two surgeries during the year. Reliever Robert Suarez, catcher Sean Murphy and shortstop Ha-Seong Kim all missed significant time. Weiss rotated through the rotation and bullpen all season and still kept Atlanta in first place practically wire to wire.

The offense carried the load. Matt Olson played all 162 games and led the club with 41 home runs, 93 RBI and 99 runs. Drake Baldwin hit .284 with 25 home runs and 79 RBI in 138 games. Ozzie Albies also played all 162 games. Ronald Acuna Jr. contributed 20 home runs and 21 stolen bases in 107 appearances.

Chris Sale anchored the pitching staff with a 2.16 ERA, 14 wins and 200 strikeouts across 162 two-thirds innings. The staff posted a 3.63 ERA despite losing two starters for most of the year.

Murphy’s case was equally strong. The Brewers finished 103-59, the best record in baseball, won the NL Central by 14 games and captured the franchise’s first World Series title. Murphy became the first manager to win the award in three consecutive seasons. It is hard to argue with any of that.

Weiss did not win the award, but the resume from year one speaks for itself. An 18-win turnaround, a division title and a postseason run while managing through a rotation that was held together with roster creativity all season is not a runner-up performance. It just happened to come in the same year as one of the best records in recent memory.