Houston Astros: AJ Hinch deserves AL Manager of the Year honors

The Houston Astros have a chance to sweep the AL Rookie of the Year, MVP, and CY Young Awards, but why not make it a clean sweep with Manager of the Year?

In a season full of historic milestones by the Houston Astros this season, I’d like to put an accentuation point one that’s not being talked about enough.

Houston has multiple favorites to win the three main regular-season single-player awards come November. Those players are Alex Bregman for AL MVP, Gerrit Cole or Justin Verlander for Cy Young, and last but not least, Yordan Alvarez for Rookie of the Year. One omission here, as I previously was alluding to is AJ Hinch‘s candidacy for Manager of the Year.

Here’s why AJ should be in the conversation:

Throughout the season, AJ has had to endure injuries to his superstars, while also exceeding expectations that the media and spectators have given the team before his unofficial campaign started.

With Jose Altuve having multiple stints on the injured list, Carlos Correa missing a combined 136 games over the past two seasons with various injuries and with George Springer spending some time on the shelf, there’s no question that Hinch has been challenged to a tee.

Even with the ailments to the numerous stars on this team, AJ has managed to set a single-

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season franchise record for wins in a season (104) with this team. The national media will use the argument that the New York Yankees and Aaron Boone had the same issues with injuries to his team’s offensive superstars but the Houston Astros lead the majors in batting average (.275), on-base percentage (.353), slugging (.495), and OPS (.848). This is just proof AJ was able to get the best production from his lineup despite the injuries.

I could make a case that the Houston Astros could be the first team in MLB history to strike out the least on offense (1,141) but strike out the most batters (1,636). The Houston Astros also have four players that have 30 or more home runs, four players that have set their career highs in home runs, along with two no-hitters and has helped this team spend the last 156 days in first place in the AL West.

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AJ has truly helped each player on this team reach their full potential, not only being able to lead this team to the most wins in franchise history but also in the MLB throughout the majority of the season.

Hinch has quite the argument to make for why he should finish off the sweep of individual awards. I would love to hear what you guys think of this argument.

Sound off in the comments, and go ‘Stros!

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