If we’re being honest, the Rays aren’t dealing with a level playing field.

They don’t operate the way most MLB franchise do, because of stadium logistics and the way the front office chooses (is forced to, likely) operate. According to USA Today , the Rays’ 2019 payroll of $53 million is not only last among the 30 teams in the sport, but it’s $17 million — roughly 32 percent — behind the 29th franchise.

So with that in mind, you have to appreciate the way Oakland A’s manager Bob Melvin talked about Kevin Cash before his A’s matched up with the Rays in the AL wild card game.

“Kevin Cash is a premier manager in this league,” Melvin told reporters. “The way they do things can be difficult to get the players to buy in, and he's gotten them to buy in 100 percent. So I think as far as the way they do things, he's about as good as they get.”

Melvin knows a thing or two about being a premier manager, too. He was voted Sporting News AL Manager of the Year for the 2018 season, and now Cash is the Sporting News AL Manager of the Year for the 2019 campaign. Cash received a plurality of votes in a survey of AL managers, appearing on four of 12 ballots cast. This marks the third time a Rays manager has received the honor, following wins by Joe Maddon in 2008 and 2011.

Sporting News has given Manager of the Year awards since 1936.

MORE: Braves' Brian Snitker voted SN NL Manager of the Year

Cash’s Rays won 96 games this season, earning the second AL wild card spot despite an unhealthy amount of injuries — only two players appeared in at least 140 games — and only one player with more than 21 homers or 72 RBIs (Austin Meadows had 33 and 89).

There were games that the Rays, with Cash’s urging, little-thing’d teams to death.

“They run, they hit and run, they first and third safeties, they do a lot of things to try to take you out of their game, and he's really good at that,” Melvin said of Cash.

All four of their outfielders — Tommy Pham, Kevin Kiermaier, Avisail Garcia and Meadows — had double digits in both home runs and stolen bases. Kiermaier is a home-grown player, but Garcia was signed as a free agent for a meager base of $3.5 million after his last year with the White Sox was a disappointment. Pham was a trade acquisition after his time in St. Louis reached a breaking point, and Meadows was part of a heist that sent Chris Archer to Pittsburgh for Meadows and Tyler Glasnow.

All three of those acquisitions were much better for the Rays in 2019 than for their former teams in 2018, and a lot of that credit goes to the manager, though he deflects that, of course.

“You've got to credit the front office,” Cash said before the start of the ALDS, which the Rays reached after knocking off the A’s in the wild card game. “I mean, first of all, they recognize these things about some of these players. And then the messaging, the communication that's involved early on, once you acquire them, there's something to be said for that. Then I can speak for the Rays, I think our goal is to try to put a lot of these players that we've — I've said it over and over now, kind of fall through the cracks at times, put them in the best position for them to succeed. And then you're going to see how that really helps a team overall succeed.”

That’s exactly what the Rays have done under Cash, and it’s exactly why his peers voted him the AL Manager of the Year.