Guardians manager Stephen Vogt deserves credit for team's reversal of fortune

CLEVELAND — Players were ultimately responsible for the Guardians' remarkable run to a postseason berth, but don't discount the contribution of Stephen Vogt, who is a strong candidate to win his second straight Manager of the Year Award. "That's our leader. We're not here without him. It's tough to put into words what he means to our group," catcher and clubhouse leader Austin Hedges said. "Everybody means so much, but he's the guy doing it every day, and as proud as I am of our group, I'm extremely proud of Steven Vogt." Vogt, 40, has guided the Guardians to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons as a major league manager, just two years away from ending his playing career. He had a tough act to follow after replacing a certain Hall of Famer in Terry Francona, who owns the most wins (921) by a Cleveland manager, and took his team to the postseason six times in 11 years from 2013-23. "He had big shoes to fill," Hedges said. "Terry Francona is one of the greatest managers of all time. I love Tito to death, (but Vogt) immediately set the tone in his own way of the type of manager he was going to be to lead us to continue to be a winning organization. "It's one thing to say it in spring (training) and I believed him, but then he had to prove it and then he proved it all last season. It was a little bit easier for us last year. We were in first place all year. Then he really, really proved it this year because this year, this is the hardest season I've ever been a part of." Resilience has been a trademark of the Guardians under Vogt, and that was put to the test when his club looked dead in the water to begin September. But, instead of turning the attention to next season, Vogt and his team surged their way into October. "It comes from the top down for sure," closer Cade Smith said. "(Vogt) represents that he's consistent, talking about how we're not going to regret working hard and finishing strong, that we were still in a position to be able to do that. "Having an anchor like that is huge. You need to be able to stay consistent, and he's a big part of that. He stayed levelheaded, he stayed steady. We stayed consistent with our goal and our approach and we learned how to bounce back from that and get going." Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on X.