Tigers fans about to riot over AJ Hinch disrespect in Manager of the Year voting

It's awards week for MLB, and the Detroit Tigers have had a few representatives up for some of the big prizes. Colt Keith and Riley Greene were both finalists for Silver Sluggers and Jake Rogers was up for a Gold Glove, while AJ Hinch and Tarik Skubal were named as finalists for two of the big ones: AL Manager of the Year and Cy Young.

Cy Young winners will be announced on Wednesday evening, and Skubal is the heavy favorite to win (maybe even by unanimous vote), but he may be the only Tiger to win a major award this offseason.

Managers of the Year were announced Tuesday, with the Guardians' Stephen Vogt running away in the AL with 27 out of 30 first place votes. The Royals' Matt Quatraro received two, and Hinch got one to place third.

All respect to Vogt, but after the monumental comeback the Tigers staged late in the regular season — helmed by Hinch, who managed the bullpen to perfection as Detroit performed a high-wire act — it's hard to understand how Hinch could've gotten overlooked this badly by BBWAA voters, so much so that he placed over 30 points behind Quatraro, whose Royals went 11-14 in September.

AJ Hinch falls short to Guardians' Stephen Vogt and Royals' Matt Quatraro to place third in AL Manager of the Year voting

Credit does have to be given to Vogt, who led the Guardians to the top of the AL Central with ease and gave the Yankees a run for their money in the ALCS in his first year as a manager (although voting closed before the postseason began).

However, Hinch's work with the Tigers late this season reinforced why managers actually matter. After the trade deadline, when Detroit only had two starters to work with, it seemed like they would slip down into fourth place in the division quietly through the rest of the season and just try to regroup for 2024. Instead, they went from 0.2% postseason odds in early August to the Wild Card and then all the way to the ALDS, where they pushed Cleveland to the brink.

Hinch has said it himself: there was no margin for error in those last two months of the season. Pretty much every decision he made as manager meant life or death for the team, and they still made it to October for the first time in a decade.

It's impossible to get into the heads of BBWAA voters, but this one feels like a major miss for them. Hinch is still waiting for his first Manager of the Year award, and it's a complete shame that it couldn't come this year, when he had maybe the best case for it in his career.