If Aaron Boone isn't the AL Manager of the Year, it'll be a bigger joke than Shohei Ohtani winning Rookie of the Year over Miguel Andujar last season. Yes, there may be some Yankee bias here. But there's usually Yankee bias the other way when it comes to awards, especially Manager of the Year. Which is why a Yankee manager hasn't won the award since Joe Torre in 1998.
The thought process, which is incredibly flawed, is that managing the Yankees is "easy" because of their resources. Never mind that with those resources come outsized expectations. Every. Single. Year. I think that's something that makes winning Manager of the Year an uphill battle for whoever the Yankees' manager is. The winner is usually the manager of a team that exceeded expectations. It's frequently the team that comes out of nowhere to make the playoffs (like the other two AL finalists). Which is extremely unfair not just to the Yankees, but the Astros, the Dodgers, and all the other teams that were expected to do well this season.
However, if you were to take the Yankee logo off his stats and did a blind side-by-side comparison with anybody else, he'd be the winner hands down. Yes, the Yankees have a large payroll. Yes, they were supposed to be one of the best teams in baseball, and that's exactly what they were. But it's how they did it. That's why I don't think there should even be a discussion.
They won 103 games and their first division title in seven years despite seemingly the entire team spending a significant amount of time on the injured list. Talk about the Yankees' payroll all you want, the number of injuries this team had to deal with was ridiculous. Every single player in the Opening Day lineup had at least one IL stint. Some were lengthy. Then their backups got hurt, too. The Yankees were down to third-stringers and guys they were signing off the street. In total, they used 53 players over the course of the season and had a Major League-record 30 players (which is five more than an active roster) make trips to the IL.
Yet whoever was in there produced. And it was because Aaron Boone pushed all the right buttons. He had his guys' backs (hence the now-famous "Savages in the box" comment). Which is how, despite everything, they won 100 games for the second straight year, making him the first manager in history to begin his career with two straight 100-win seasons.
What's funny, too, is that people are using a very similar argument for why Tampa Bay's Kevin Cash should win. It's the whole "he did more with less" argument. And, yes, it's true that the Rays' Opening Day payroll was one of the lowest in the Majors. But I don't know how that's Aaron Boone's fault. And you can't point to Tampa Bay's use of 57 players when the Yankees dealt with just as many injuries (for longer periods, to more significant players). Yes, the Rays won 96 games. That was seven less than Boone's Yankees.
Rocco Baldelli, a former Ray, led Minnesota to 100 wins as a first-year manager. It was quite a turnaround for the Twins, who set a Major League record with 307 home runs. It was a fine season, and he's a deserving third-place finisher. But this is a race between Boone and Cash.
My Ballot: 1. Boone, 2. Cash, 3. Baldelli
In the National League, something's that never happened to me before happened this year. My Manager of the Year isn't one of the three finalists. It's Dave Martinez of the World Series champion Nationals.
I know he obviously didn't actually win, but I don't think any National League manager did anything close to the type of job Martinez did this season. Washington was 19-31 after 50 games. Yet Martinez didn't panic. He was patient, waiting for guys to return from injury. After those guys came back, the Nationals were one of the best teams in the Majors. They finished 74-38 and made the playoffs as the top wild card. We all know what happened from there. Even though the voting was conducted before the playoffs and none of that counts. But, still, he went from almost fired in May to hoisting the Commissioner's Trophy in October.
Even though he has my non-existent "vote," Dave Martinez is not the NL Manager of the Year. It's either Craig Counsell of the Brewers, Mike Schildt of the Cardinals or Atlanta's Brian Snitker, who's a finalist for the second straight year. And, frankly, I have no idea who's going to win. It appears to be a battle between the two managers from the NL Central, though.
Counsell's seen as the front-runner and probably won, mainly because of what he did in September to guide the Brewers into the playoffs for the second straight year. And they got there by going 20-7 in September after entering the month just 69-66. Oh, and they did that despite Christian Yelich missing the last three weeks of the season with a broken hand. None of that stopped Milwaukee's march to the playoffs, though. Which is similar to what they did last September. During the nomination show on MLB Network, one of them noted what Counsell can do with the expanded September roster. We'll see if he can do it again next year, when he won't have 20 pitchers at his disposal.
Mike Schildt, meanwhile, guided the Cardinals to their first division title in four years. This despite having a team that, on paper, was probably the third-best in the NL Central entering the season. They don't have the talent of either the Brewers or the Cubs, yet they finished ahead of Milwaukee and essentially knocked their archrivals out with a four-game sweep at Wrigley in September. All they've done since Schildt took over in the middle of last season is win.
Which can also be said about Brian Snitker's Braves. He won the award last year and guided Atlanta to another division title this season. This in an NL East that figured to be one of the most competitive divisions in baseball. Yet the Braves seized control of it in May and never looked back. They've got a lot of talent, but Snitker figured out how to harness it into 97 wins. This despite not really having a starting rotation other than Mike Soroka until they signed Dallas Keuchel in June.
Winning Manager of the Year in back-to-back years is hard, though. And, frankly, I don't even think Snitker did the best job in his own division (again, I think that was Martinez). Which is why I think he finished third here. My guess is Counsell won. Although, if I had to choose between just those three, I'd probably go with Schildt.
My Ballot: 1. Martinez, 2. Schildt, 3. Counsell
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