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Rangers manager Jeff Banister captures AL Manager of the Year award

Overseeing the biggest one-year turnaround in the AL while dealing with decimating injuries to his starting rotation led Jeff Banister to the AL's Manager of the Year award Tuesday.

In the voting conducted by the Baseball Writers Association of America, Banister received 17 of 30 first-place votes and totaled 112 points. Hinch was second with eight first-place  votes and  82 total votes.

Banister beat out Houston's A.J. Hinch and Minnesota's Paul Molitor. All three managers were in their first year with their current clubs and oversaw teams that bounced back from at least 90 losses in 2014. Banister took the Rangers from 67 wins in 2014 to 88 and the AL West title in 2015, a 21-game improvement. Hinch oversaw a 16-game turnaround and helped Houston win an AL Wild Card spot.  Molitor's Twins had a 13-win improvement from 2014 to 83 wins this past season.

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The Rangers began the season with a team full of questions due to an unproven bullpen and a starting rotation that was without Yu Darvish and was missing Derek Holland after just one inning. Though the club got off to an 8-16 start, the Rangers battled back to .500 by late May.

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By the end of July, the Rangers were above .500 but still eight games back of Houston and Los Angeles in the AL West. From August 1 until the end of the season, coinciding with the acquisitions of Cole Hamels for the rotation and Sam Dyson and Jake Diekman for the bullpen, the Rangers went 38-22, second to Toronto in the American League. Toronto, which beat the Rangers in the AL Division Series, went 40-18 in the same stretch.

Banister joins Johnny Oates (who shared the award with New York's Joe Torre) in 1996 and Buck Showalter in 2004. Ron Washington, who took the Rangers to consecutive World Series appearances in 2010-11, never won the award in his nearly eight seasons on the job.

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The next step for the Rangers and Banister may be to discuss a contract extension. Banister signed a three-year deal last October to become the team's manager. The deal does include a club option for 2017.