Not surprisingly, Baseball got its awards season started with Tampa Bay's Wil Myers and Miami's Jose Fernandez taking home the Rookie of the Year awards. Neither was a surprise, although I thought the margin between Fernandez and Yasiel Puig would be a little closer. Anyway, now it's on to the managers, where I think the winners will be almost as clear-cut as the Cy Young winners.
Before I break down the candidates, I have to go on a bit of a rant. How is it possible that Joe Girardi didn't finish in the top three of the voting?! Girardi wasn't going to win, and it's likely he finished fourth, but can anybody seriously tell me that Bob Melvin did a better managing job than him this season? Melvin, last year's deserving winner, took a playoff team back to the playoffs. Sure, it was low-budget Oakland, but I think Melvin was given a little too much credit for basically keeping it going this year.
Girardi, meanwhile, did one of the best managing jobs of a third-place team I've ever seen, and it was by far the best job he did during his time with the Yankees. All the injuries, a franchise-record number of players used, a patchwork lineup of Minor Leaguers and scrap-heap veterans. Yet he had his team in the playoff hunt until the final week of the season. I'm still convinced that Girardi would've been the hands-down winner if the Yankees actually had managed to make the playoffs despite everything they had to overcome this season. We've been having a similar discussion at work over the past several days, and I agree with my colleague Christian's assessment. Having the best team doesn't mean you're the best coach. Joe Girardi did a better managing job than Bob Melvin did this season.
Since I've made it pretty clear that not one part of me believes Bob Melvin is worthy of being AL Manager of the Year, that leaves us with two candidates. The two guys who deserve to be finalists. Terry Francona and John Farrell. Francona led an incredible turnaround in his first year in Cleveland, while Farrell didn't just right the ship in Boston. He took the Red Sox from a last place embarrassment to a 97-win, World Series championship squad.
Either choice would be a good one. Cleveland's success this season was more unexpected, and most of the credit for it has to go to Francona. His split with the Red Sox was pretty unpleasant, but this season in Cleveland proved something we all already knew. Terry Francona can manage. The man who replaced him in Boston, meanwhile (if you don't count the Bobby Valentine Era), completely changed the culture. John Farrell brought a winning mentality back to that clubhouse and transformed the Red Sox back into what you'd expect. That annoyingly good team that just won't go away.
The votes are cast before the postseason, so Farrell won't get any credit for leading the Red Sox to the World Series title. Even without it, though, I think he gets the award. Most people thought bringing Boston back would be more than a one-year job. Well, he didn't just lead a worst-to-first turnaround, he guided his team to the best record in baseball.
In the National League, the winner is just as obvious. For 19 years, the Pittsburgh Pirates were known more for losing than anything else. This year, they finally broke that streak of losing seasons, and then some. Pittsburgh hosted a playoff game for the first time since Barry Bonds was on the team and took the Cardinals to five games in the Division Series. The credit for that can be pointed towards one man. The Pirates' return to relevance was the fruit of the labor put in by Clint Hurdle. I've never seen someone more deserving of a Manager of the Year award.
That's not to say either Don Mattingly or Fredi Gonzalez is undeserving. All three NL candidates would be deserving. Mattingly went from almost getting fired in June to the NLCS and a contract extension, while Gonzalez had the Braves in first place all season. Unlike the AL, I have no issue with these three finalists. In fact, I predicted they'd be the three at the All*Star Break. It doesn't change the fact, though, that out of these three standout managerial performances, Clint Hurdle's stands out the most.
So, for the record, my choices and my predictions for the AL and NL Managers of the Year are the same. John Farrell and Clint Hurdle. In a year that saw a number of great managerial performances, theirs were the best. My vote in the American League would go (1) Farrell, (2) Francona, (3) Girardi, and in the National League, my rankings would be (1) Hurdle, (2) Mattingly, (3) Gonzalez.
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