Brandon Hyde's firing proves two years too late that Bruce Bochy got shafted

It's now been over 24 hours since the Baltimore Orioles fired their manager Brandon Hyde after the team got off to a 15-29 record to kick off the 2025 season.

Hyde was hired as the manager in Baltimore prior to the 2019 season and in that span he led the Orioles to a resurgence to three straight winning season in 2022-24, including an American League East Division title in 2023. For that, Hyde was voted the American League Manager of the Year.

Which is what leads us to this topic of conversation: Bruce Bochy should have won the AL Manager of the Year in 2023 over the Orioles manager.

Bochy who took over the Rangers that year, led a 22-win turnaround to finish the season 90-72 with their first playoff appearance in seven years. And I know it's not a playoff award but the Rangers did end up winning the World Series that year, which included a three-game sweep in the ALDS over Hyde's Orioles.

3 reasons why Bochy should've won 2023 AL Manager of the Year

Led a terrific Rangers' offensive outburt

The Rangers were one of the best offensive teams in the league. As a team, the Rangers slashed .263//337/.452/.789 with 23 home runs, 881 runs scored and 1,470 hits; all of which were among top 5 in MLB.

Not only that, it was a big shift from the previous season. In 2022, the Rangers were in the bottom half of the league in average (.239), OBP (.301), OPS (.696) and struck out seventh-most in the league.

Terms of individual performances, Corey Seager and Marcus Semien finished second and third in the American League MVP voting, with both finishing the year with a WAR above 7.0. Every single player in the everyday lineup also finished the season with a positive WAR.

Navigated through a horrendous regular season bullpen

Wow, the Rangers' bullpen was terrible in 2023 and yet Bochy still managed to lead them to a 90-win season.

As a reliever core they were only able to convert 30 saves in 63 opportunities (47.6%) which was the worst in the majors. The Rangers had 13 players blow at least one save with Leclerc leading the team with five blown saves (5 for 9).

The Rangers saw some unfortunate ends to games, blowing 39 leads throughout the year, starting early on in the season. In a three-game series against the Reds from April 24-26, Texas got swept losing all three in the final two innings.

Kept Rangers on track after medicore second half

Every team will have ups and downs throughout a 162-game season, but the Rangers down was pretty bad. In the second half of the season, Texas barely snuck above .500 (38-33), including an eight game losing streak from August 16 to August 25.

Because of that fall, the Rangers ended up losing the AL West Dvision lead, which they held for 160 days throughout the year. It even took the Rangers until the final series of the regular season in Seattle to clinch a playoff berth.

Through all that, Bochy was able to keep the guys calm and collected, which paid off when the team had to go into the playoffs and win 11 games on the road throughout the postseason on their journey to winning the World Series.

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