Top five National League Manager of the Year candidates

The 2023 Major League Baseball season is heading into the home stretch. Who will take home the hardware as the National League's Manager of the Year? Here are the top five contenders in reverse order (YB's NL and AL MVP candidates are here and here. YB's NL and AL Cy Young Award candidates are here and here).

All stats are through Friday.

5. Gabe Kapler, San Francisco Giants

It was only two seasons ago that Kapler led the Giants to a franchise-record 107 wins before losing a hard-fought NLDS to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Last year, San Francisco started 10 games over .500 but went 10 games under .500 the rest of the way. Kapler has the Giants back on track for a wild-card berth this season, and he seems to have learned from his previous mistakes as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.

4. Skip Schumaker, Miami Marlins

In his first season as the Marlins manager following Don Mattingly's retirement, Schumaker has Miami in a rare September position: contenders. Although the Fish have tailed off recently (their 15-28 record since the All-Star break is tied for the worst in baseball), they're still a game over .500 and just two games out of a wild-card spot — not bad for a franchise that hasn't had a winning record in a full season since 2009.

3. Torey Lovullo, Arizona Diamondbacks

Lovullo already has one Manager of the Year Award to his name for his performance as Arizona's rookie skipper in 2017. That season, Lovullo led the Diamondbacks to the playoffs after they lost 93 games the year before. Arizona bottomed out by losing 110 games just two seasons ago, but Lovullo now has the D-backs tied with the Giants for the third wild-card spot in the National League.

2. David Bell, Cincinnati Reds

Last season, Bell's Reds lost 22 of their first 25 games and looked to give the 1962 New York Mets a run for their money. Cincinnati rebounded slightly but still suffered 100 losses for just the second time in franchise history. This year, Bell has the Reds one game out of a wild-card spot and a workable 6.5 games out of first place in the National League Central. Cincinnati is looking to become just the second team in major league history to make the playoffs in a full season after losing 100 games the year before (joining the 2017 Minnesota Twins).

1. David Ross, Chicago Cubs

Ross was one of the catchers on the 2016 Cubs team that finally broke the curse and won the World Series. He took over for his former manager, Joe Maddon, in 2020 and saw each of his former teammates (Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, etc.) get traded away. After back-to-back losing seasons, Chicago appeared ready to tear down to the studs again as recently as six weeks ago. On July 17, the Cubs were seven games under .500. Since then, they have the second-best record in baseball and are two games up on the Giants and Diamondbacks for the National League's second wild-card spot. Who better to lead the way than a 2016 alumnus?