Stephen Vogt shares managerial philosophy in 3rd season with Guardians

CLEVELAND — As Stephen Vogt continues his third consecutive postseason run as manager of the Guardians, one of his most-repeated mantras is that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

But in Year 3, one thing he does feel he knows is that a manager doing too much managing can be a net negative. Timing, and perhaps restraint in many situations, is paramount.

The Guardians won 85 games, their third consecutive AL Central division title and the No. 2 seed in Vogt’s third full season as manager. In the previous two, he won AL Manager of the Year honors, and he has a chance to finish as a finalist in 2026 as well.

Now in his third postseason, there’s a higher level of comfort than, say, 24 months ago, when the Guardians surprised the league in 2024 by surging to the division title amid average-at-best expectations en route to a trip to the ALCS. Last year, the Vogt-led Guardians overcame a historic 15.5-game deficit to win the division.

“I definitely feel more prepared each year,” Vogt said in the lead-in to the ALDS against the White Sox, which Chicago led 1-0 after a Game 1 shutout. “I think I don’t know what I don’t know, still.”

Vogt still welcomes the many unknowns.

“I think it’s just continuing to learn,” he said. “You think back to some of the great managers that have 20-something year of experience, so I don’t have that. I’ve watched a lot of baseball and been through a lot of baseball, but I’m continuing to learn every day.

“I think for me it’s, ‘OK, what’s happened in the years prior [in the playoffs]? Where did we go right? Where did we go wrong? What can we do to get out ahead of it this time?”

Guardians reach MLB playoffs for third time under Stephen Vogt

Vogt also believes there’s a real balance to how much certain things can be forced. It’s why they’re called managers. They’re there to manage situations and call the shots, but there’s a poetry to not overstepping or trying to control too much, either. It’s become one of his primary philosophies to handling the job.

“What I’ve learned is you can outthink yourself,” Vogt said. “You can overthink. You can try to insert yourself into the game too much. A lot of times, you just got to let the players play.

“That’s what I’ve learned the most is maybe when I had a gut instinct on something and I would just fire away, maybe it wasn’t the right move. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Maybe I should have given that person an opportunity to do something different. And so I’ve found that the less I can insert myself into a game, the better we are, and I want to do that as little as possible.”

Three trips to the postseason in three seasons with a first-time manager and one of the league’s bottom-five payrolls presents a pretty strong resume, even if Cleveland hasn’t quite found the October success for which they’re looking.

Vogt wants to avoid overinserting himself into games too much. But without him in the manager’s office, they know there’s a chance they’re sitting on the couch watching the playoffs from afar in at least one of the last three seasons.

Ryan Lewis covers the Guardians for the Beacon Journal. He can be reached at rlewis1@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Stephen Vogt shares managerial philosophy in 3rd season with Guardians

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