CLEVELAND (AP) — Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt dispelled speculation about his future, saying he'll return to the club next season to chase an elusive World Series title.
“I'm here,” Vogt said at a news conference Thursday. “I'm coming back.”
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Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt addresses the media before practice in a baseball American League Championship Series against the Tampa Bay Rays Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt hits to the infield during batting practice before Game 1 of an American League Championship Series baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cleveland Guardians in St. Petersburg, Fla. Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt hits during batting practice before Game 4 of an American League Championship Series baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays in Cleveland, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt celebrates after Game 5 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Chicago White Sox, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt arrives for batting practice before Game 2 of an American League Championship Series baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla. Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Vogt has led the Guardians to a division crown in each of his three seasons, He has twice been named AL Manager of the Year. With the Seattle Mariners' managerial spot open, there had been rumblings about Vogt possibly leaving in order to be closer to his family's home in Olympia, Washington.
However, the 41-year-old Vogt said he has not been contacted by the Mariners, who fired Dan Wilson last month following a disappointing 76-86 season.
Vogt spent one season as Seattle's bullpen coach in 2023 before being hired by Cleveland and that relationship helped fuel theories about a departure.
“I'll be in Cleveland,” Vogt said three days after the Guardians were eliminated in the AL Championship Series by Tampa Bay. “I have not gotten a phone call. It was all just media (driven).”
While Vogt is adamant he's staying, it remains possible the Mariners could call the Guardians with a trade offer. Though rare, trades involving managers in Major League Baseball are not unprecedented, with the most recent involving John Farrell going from Toronto to Boston in 2012.
Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti was asked about a potential pitch from the Mariners.
“I have every expectation that Voter is going to manage here for a really long time,” Antonetti said, using Vogt's nickname. “We don’t have any interest in Voter managing anywhere else.”
Vogt signed a multiyear contract extension with Cleveland following the 2024 season. That deal was never made public and the club's secrecy about the contract's terms may have played a part in the rumors about a move.
A father of three, Vogt has been open about the difficulty in being away from his loved ones over an extended period. His wife, Alyssa, and their kids join him in the summer, but the months apart are hard on him.
“It’s not just since I’ve been here. This has been my whole playing career,” said Vogt, who played with six teams from 2012-2022. “It’s very difficult living on the other side of the country, especially with my kids’ age. My daughter’s in high school, my boys are starting to get older, their activities are going up, so it’s more challenging for them to get out here on a whim.
“But my wife’s incredible and she reminds me every day that I’m where I’m supposed to be and I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And she jokes, ‘We don’t need you anyway.’ Not joking. It’s the worst part of my job.”
As for the job he did this season with Cleveland, Vogt deserves praise.
One of the league's youngest teams, the Guardians regrouped from a sluggish first half and, bolstered by several trade deadline acquisitions, caught Chicago and won the division. They then rallied from a 0-2 deficit to stun the White Sox in the Division Series.
Cleveland's magic disappeared against the Rays, extending baseball's current longest World Series drought to 76 years.
Through it all, Vogt believed the '26 Guardians would prevail.
“There was a belief that we were just going to do it,” he said. “We were never out of it. It wasn’t like '25 where we did this historical comeback, needed a bunch of help. We controlled our destiny and we went out and grabbed it and took it.”
Vogt, Antonetti and general manager Mike Chernoff addressed several other topics, including:
— Pitching coach Carl Willis will return for a 15th season in two stints with Cleveland. Willis, 65, has helped develop five Cy Young winners during his career.
“He’s given a ton to this organization and is insanely competitive,” Antonetti said. “He really wants to win a World Series in Cleveland for Cleveland.”
— Vogt reiterated that the curious lack of postseason use for starter Tanner Bibee was because the team wanted to lean on its left-handed pitchers. Vogt said he spoke with an “upset” Bibee before Game 6 of the ALCS.
“We ended up talking about a lot more than just baseball and had a similar conversation in his exit interview,” Vogt said. “It was very candid. It was very open. He spoke his mind and we gave him our reasoning. Tanner’s going to be a huge part of this team for a long time and I’m really excited about that.”
This story was first published on Oct. 22, 2026. It was updated on Oct. 23, 2026 to correct that John Farrell was traded from Toronto to Boston in 2012, not the other way around.
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Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt addresses the media before practice in a baseball American League Championship Series against the Tampa Bay Rays Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt hits to the infield during batting practice before Game 1 of an American League Championship Series baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cleveland Guardians in St. Petersburg, Fla. Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt hits during batting practice before Game 4 of an American League Championship Series baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays in Cleveland, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt celebrates after Game 5 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Chicago White Sox, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt arrives for batting practice before Game 2 of an American League Championship Series baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla. Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
President Donald Trump on Friday said he told his administration to file its lawsuit to block certification of the U.S. Senate race in Alaska if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, kicking off what many fear could become a lengthy battle between the government and states over certifying an election where the president's party is struggling.
“I'm the one that said do it,” Trump told reporters as he landed for a campaign rally in Florida.
The lawsuit, filed late Thursday, centers on one of the president's longstanding complaints in the Senate race — the presence of a second candidate named Dan Sullivan, who Republicans fear could siphon away votes from the incumbent in what's likely to be a photo-finish contest with Democrat Mary Peltola, the state's former congresswoman.
The second Sullivan, who is Daniel J. Sullivan from the tiny fishing community of Petersburg, has said he decided to run on his own, but Republicans have contended he is a Democratic plant to siphon votes away from their candidate.
The lawsuit by the Republican president's Department of Justice in federal court in Alaska demands that the state be blocked from certifying a Peltola win if Daniel J. Sullivan remains on the ballot. “The United States accordingly brings this lawsuit to protect the integrity of the 2026 Senate election in Alaska,” the lawsuit says.
The legal challenge came 11 days before the Nov. 3 election and months after the final ballot was set. It is the latest example of the Department of Justice bolstering Trump's political operation, targeting his enemies and suing Democratic-controlled states before the election.
Democrats and many voting rights advocates have long feared that the administration will try to block certification of elections that Trump’s party loses, much as he unsuccessfully tried to do when he lost the 2020 White House race to Democrat Joe Biden.
The Alaska Supreme Court rejected a previous Republican effort to remove Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot, and the state's Republican officials made the decisions about how to list him on the ballot. He will appear without a party designation next to his name, while the senator will be listed as the Republican incumbent. Alaska's ranked choice voting system also will allow voters to select both of the men if confused.
The senator received more than 68,000 votes in the August primary, while the challenging Sullivan got 4,107, about 2% of the total vote. Peltola, who had previously served one term in the House, was the top vote-getter in the nonpartisan primary. Both parties expect that whoever wins in November will do so by a tight margin in a state of 738,000 people.
The campaign for Sen. Dan Sullivan did not address whether the senator supports the Department of Justice's intervention. “We'll let the DOJ complaint run its course,” campaign spokesman Nate Adams said in a text message. “Alaskans can tell the difference between a Democrat sideshow and Senator Sullivan's strong record of delivering for Alaska.”
Daniel J. Sullivan, whose presence on the ballot is at issue in the lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment.
“Donald Trump knows that Dan Sullivan is going to lose the election, so now his Department of Justice is filing a sham lawsuit to overturn the will of Alaska voters and steal an election when he loses,” said Devan Barber, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Peltola, on her Substack, wrote, “This is a blatant, despicable political threat – all because a historically unpopular 12-year incumbent is scared that he’s going to lose the Senate seat that belongs to Alaskans.”
Alaska's other senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, wrote on social media Friday night: “Alaskans don’t need any help voting for their preferred candidates, and the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year’s ballot. The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit.”
In a statement Friday, the Department of Justice noted that Alaska's election officials, who are Republicans, determined the other Sullivan's campaign was an attempt to “mislead” voters and wanted him removed from the ballot. Both a state court and Alaska's Supreme Court disagreed and kept the second Sullivan on the ballot.
"The Justice Department, consistent with the National Voter Registration Act enacted by Congress, is taking the necessary steps to ensure that this frivolous candidacy does not undermine the integrity of Alaska’s election or the will of its voters,” the department's statement said.
Concerns about the Department of Justice's role in the election had already reached a fever pitch this month after it filed an unusual, last-minute lawsuit demanding California segregate ballots from 20,000 voters who the Trump administration believed could be noncitizens. California said that it appeared many of those identified were indeed citizens and that they had no time to carefully investigate, as the administration threatened to prosecute the state's election workers if there was illegal voting.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche denied the action was a prelude to challenging certification of the midterm results in that state, adding that such a move may happen under a “doomsday” scenario but was unlikely.
“It is not DOJ’s intention to, and it’s never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process," he told reporters Thursday in Virginia before the Alaska lawsuit was filed.
The lawsuit was signed by Associate U.S. Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who represented Trump allies and Jan. 6 defendants before becoming one of the top appointees at the department.
Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the lawsuit would likely only kick in if Republicans narrowly lose the Alaska Senate race and that it probably would not survive long. “The statute simply doesn't let the Department of Justice enjoin certification,” Muller said. “The lawsuit could well be mooted by a wide Democratic victory or a narrow Republican one, and if not, the court will likely dismiss it next month.”
The U.S. Constitution grants states the power to run their own elections. Elections for federal office like the Senate must comply with standards set by Congress. That division of power has frustrated Trump, who repeatedly has tried to seize control of election procedures through executive orders that courts have blocked.
The final step for a state election is formally certifying the winner, the act that the administration's lawsuit seeks to prevent, it requests, “pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan."
The process in Alaska is complicated by the state's ranked choice voting system, which Trump opposes, and many expect it to take weeks before a winner is known. Also on the state's ballot is an initiative to repeal that system.
Trump has complained about Daniel J. Sullivan's presence on the ballot, making reference to it during a rally in Alaska this month and in repeated social media posts, including one this week where he called it “CHEATING.”
“We are looking at powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot, and holding the Democrats accountable for their Election Interference, in the pursuit of Justice and Fairness,” the president wrote on Wednesday.
Clogging a ballot with third-party candidates to siphon off votes from the other major party is a long-standing tactic in the country's two-party system. Republicans have been linked to an effort to persuade Ohio voters to support a socialist in that state's Senate race, which could help Republican Sen. Jon Husted fend off a challenge from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, Ali Swenson in New York and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
This combination photo shows Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, left, in Palmer, Alaska, Aug. 17, 2026, and a candidate in Alaska's Senate race, Dan Sullivan, right, in Petersburg, Alaska, July 3, 2026. (AP Photos/Mark Thiessen/Becky Bohrer)
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One, Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Fla. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump greets Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, at a campaign rally at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, in Wasilla, Alaska. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
President Donald Trump listens as Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, speaks at a campaign rally at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, in Wasilla, Alaska. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One, Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
In this photo shot with a smart phone, Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan poses ahead of a debate with Democrat Mary Peltola in Alaska's Senate race, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer)
