McAdam: In finishing second in A.L. Manager of the Year voting, Alex Cora a victim of his own success

The name of the award, officially, is American League Manager of the Year. But really, it should be titled: "Manager who most exceeded expectations.''

Because that's what it has become.

Bob Melvin of the Oakland A's won the 2018 A.L. Manager of the Year award Tuesday, capturing 18 first-place votes to seven for the Red Sox' Alex Cora (and another five for Tampa Bay's Kevin Cash). In points total, Melvin finished with 121, followed by Cora at 79 and Cash at 57.

This marks the third time Melvin has won the honor, and to be clear, he was a deserving winner. Melvin took a team with the lowest payroll in the game ($66 million) and led them to a wild card spot.

Cora, though, set a franchise record by managing the Red Sox to 108 wins in his first head job anywhere. But Cora also inherited a team coming off back-to-back division titles and playoff appearances. And, importantly, the Red Sox had the game's biggest payroll, somewhere near $240 million, or, more than three times the payroll of the A's.

And that's a significant factor here. Some voters undoubtedly expected the Sox to reach the postseason a third straight season, aided and abetted by their enormous resources. The A's, meanwhile, were no one's choice to qualify for the playoffs, but did anyway.

Put another way: the Red Sox paid nearly $30 million to two players who played elsewhere (Pablo Sandoval in San Francisco and Rusney Castillo in Pawtucket) and another $15 million to someone who was gone from their organization on May 26 (Hanley Ramirez). That's about 70 percent of the entire A's payroll for 2018.

This has been a hallmark of this award for some time: successful managers from big-market teams are routinely overlooked because they were supposed to win, while managers from small-market teams are rewarded for overachieving.

How else to explain that Terry Francona, despite five trips to the postseason, never won a Manager of the Year award in eight seasons with the Red Sox, but has since won twice since moving on to Cleveland. Did Francona become a smarter or more accomplished manager when he took over the Indians? Of course not. But he does have the handicap of far fewer resources, thus earning the attention of the voters.

The same ''expectations game'' worked against Cora. He took over an already talented roster, one was immeasurably improved by the addition of J.D. Martinez, the missing link for the team's underperforming lineup the year before. So when he beat out the Yankees -- the Sox were in first-place to stay from July 2 on, or nearly the entire second-half of the season -- it wasn't considered much of a surprise.

That calculus, however, fails to take into account all that Cora achieved in his first season. It fails to take into account how he pulled the team together in spring training, or the patience he showed with struggling players such as David Price or Jackie Bradley Jr., or how he stuck his neck out to recommend the team move on from Ramirez, or how he bolstered the confidence of Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, each of whom enjoyed career years after disappointing seasons in 2017.

It fails to consider how he helped change the culture around the team, or deftly incorporated the analytics data he received on a daily basis. Or how he survived (virtually) the entire season without Dustin Pedroia, or how he navigated the final two months without much from Chris Sale.

And while it's true that Melvin didn't have the luxury of the game's biggest payroll, it's safe to assume that he didn't have anywhere near the pressures that come with managing in Boston, a team that hadn't gotten out of the first round of the playoffs since 2013.

Once more: this isn't to denigrate Melvin, who's now won the award as often as Joe Maddon, Dusty Baker, Jim Leyland, Buck Showalter and Lou Piniella. That's pretty good company.

The voting, of course, was completed at the conclusion of the regular season, so it doesn't take into account that while Melvin's team was ousted in the wild card game, Cora's club went 11-3, defeated two 100-win teams to win the pennant, then won the Red Sox' ninth world championship in beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.

Just a guess, but I'm betting that Cora wouldn't trade what he experienced in October for the award he lost out on Tuesday night.