Francona has a chance to win the prize against Pat Murphy of the Milwaukee Brewers and Rob Thomson of the Philadelphia Phillies. All three managers helped their team reach the playoffs. Murphy won the award in 2024 and wants to be the first manager to win the NL award twice in a row in twenty years. Murphy’s Brewers had the best record in baseball this season, finishing 97-65 in the regular season and winning the Central Division. Philadelphia was one game off that pace when Thomson’s club won the Eastern Division 96-966 and defeated the second-place Mets by 13 games.
For Terry Francona, he took the Reds to the playoffs with a third-place finish in the division at 83-79, finishing 14 games behind Murphy and the Brewers. If Francona were to win the award, it would be the fourth time he has done so in his career. He won the award in the American League in 2013, 2016 and 2022. All of these victories came while he was a manager in Cleveland.
Changes in the technical staff
There will be some changes to the coaching staff in 2026. The Reds already lost JR House when he took the job as Arizona’s third base coach last month. Bench coach Brad Mills, who joined the team in 2025, is also no longer there. Mills decided to retire.
Willie Harris is now part of the big league coaching staff and will be the team’s new third base coach. He was the manager of Single-A Daytona this season and has worked in the Reds farm system in the past. He also served as the third base coach for the Chicago Cubs from 2021-2024.
Mike Napoli will take over as bench coach for the Reds. He was on the staff in 2025, but was listed simply as “coach,” with no real designation. Napoli joined the Reds for the 2025 season after spending the previous four years in Chicago as part of their big league coaching staff.
Bill Haselman is a newcomer to the organization and will take over as Cincinnati’s catchers coach. From 1990 to 2003, he was a catcher in the big league for thirteen seasons. The year after he retired he went into coaching and coincidentally that happened for three years under Terry Francona in Boston. He then worked for a while for the Rangers, the Reds Sox (for the second time), the Dodgers and Angels, where he was their third base coach in the major leagues for a season and worked in their farm system with catchers for three years.
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