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Rangers' Banister named AL Manager of the Year

Peter Llewellyn / Reuters

Texas Rangers manager Jeff Banister was voted as the 2015 American League Manager of the Year on Tuesday.

Banister, 50, became the third Rangers manager in club history to receive the honor, joining Johnny Oates (1996) and Buck Showalter (2004).

"I'm truly honored and blessed," he said after the announcement was made. "This is an organizational award for me. It comes down to our coaching staff, players, our development staff, front office ... I get to sit in this seat, I get to accept the award for an entire organization because it takes an entire organization and a group of players to go out and play every single day to be able to put ourselves in this kind of spot."

Manager 1st 2nd 3rd Total
Jeff Banister 17 8 3 112
A.J. Hinch 8 13 3 82
Paul Molitor 2 3 14 33
John Gibbons 1 5 2 22
Joe Girardi 2 0 2 12

The selection of Banister marked the first time the AL award went to someone who was in his first full season as a manager, and just the fifth time overall. Other first-year winners such as Hal Lanier, Dusty Baker, Joe Girardi, and Matt Williams came from the NL.

Texas saw a 21-win improvement from 2014 under Banister's guidance - the second-largest increase of any team in baseball, behind only the Chicago Cubs. The Rangers became just the fifth team to make the postseason after having the league's worst record the season prior, and only the second in the AL.

Banister helped lead the Rangers to an AL West title in an 88-74 campaign, taking them to the postseason for the first time since 2012. He became the only manager in franchise history to guide the Rangers to either a first-place finish or a postseason berth in his first year as manager.

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