Today’s awards: Managers of the Year
Posted by: Sam Borden - Posted in Misc on Nov 18, 2009 
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The official announcement of today’s winners will be at 2 p.m. Until then, here are my thoughts and predictions. Feel free to chime in with your own.
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AMERICAN LEAGUE MANAGER OF THE YEAR
The favorite: Mike Scioscia, Angels
The contenders: Ron Gardenhire, Twins
The dark horse: Ron Washington, Rangers
The Yankee with a chance: Dave Miley (sadly, Chad isn’t voting)
Morning analysis: If on-field results were all that mattered than Joe Girardi would have a legitimate chance to win and his biggest competition would probably be from Gardenhire, who did a fantastic job to get his team into the postseason after playing April without Joe Mauer and the entire stretch run without Justin Morneau. Unfortunately for everyone, there are unimaginable circumstances surrounding this season’s award and it’s nearly impossible for anyone to know exactly what Scioscia had to do to help his team get through the grief that comes with losing a teammate after Nick Adenhart was killed on April 9.
The prediction: Say what you want about him, but this year more than ever Scioscia deserves it.
NATIONAL LEAGUE MANAGER OF THE YEAR
The favorite: Jim Tracy, Rockies
The contenders: Tony La Russa, Cardinals; Charlie Manuel, Phillies
The dark horses: Fredi Gonzalez, Marlins; Bobby Cox, Braves
The (former) Yankee with a chance: Joe Torre, Dodgers
Morning analysis: I was particularly impressed with what Manuel did this season, mostly because he navigated his team all the way to the playoffs with a bullpen that was pretty much a disaster all year long. Gonzalez, too, did incredible things with a still-developing team in Florida and La Russa continued his general excellence (even if he is a know-it-all). All that said, you can’t ignore Tracy – going from bench coach to manager and then laughingstock to the wild card is the stuff of dreams. If he doesn’t win, it’s insane.
The prediction: It’s Tracy. Now if we could only get Mumbles to present the award to him …
The record: 2-for-3 (hit on Coghlan, Greinke; missed on Bailey)
It should be Gardenhire in a landslide.
Joe Girardi should win it and I hope he does. If he does, ESPN will write an article asking ‘did he buy the award?’ ! “Buying a championship”; it’s all lazy analysis, and an easy topic to constantly bring up by the sports writers or commentators on radio & in the media. Why not give props where props are due?
OK, so here’s how starved I am for anything Yankee related: I was flipping around TV last night and came across a rerun of Law and Order: SVU. The opening credits were coming on the screen, and Producer: Jose Molina came up. So I got all excited because a producer on SVU has the same name as the Yankees backup catcher.
Or maybe it really is Jose and he’s just a man of many talents.
washington
gardenhire
sciosa
sorry joe girardi , but 430 million spent last wnter gives you a little faster racing car.
nice job though.
interesting dynamic down in texas.
washington is as old school as it gets and the management is new school.
… and then there’s nolan ryan added to the mix.
, but 430 million spent last wnter gives
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this is such a dumb comment and so many people seem to make it. The yankees did not spend 430 mil last year. That is what the TOTAL of those contracts will be when they are over.
Yankees spend 200M last year. the same as the year before (maybe a few mil less), and similar to what it has been this entire decade. so YES, the fact that the yankees won 103 games and a championship is extremely significant.
The Angels manager should win it because he had no talent on that team and AFTER the ahem “trade deadline” he was handed a bad pitcher named Kazmir, and he had to deal with that hardship too.
Rishi
November 18th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Crawdaddy
November 18th, 2009 at 8:54 am
“FRONT PAGE OF ESPN!!!!
Salary Cap & Yankee Payroll
LOL”
I didn’t read the article by Howard Bryant, but to be fair the following is the caption for that article:
“Did the Yankees buy a World Series celebration? Their $207 million payroll didn’t hurt, but in an offseason focused on money, cries for a salary cap are way off the mark.”
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I read it – acutally an interesting article and shows how the the “buying a world series” perspective is flawed
Love the Dave Miley choice!
I can’t see how Gardenhire loses in the AL. No Mauer for 6 weeks. No Morneau for the entire stretch run. A cast of nobodies in the rotation AND lineup….and they still made the playoffs.
Say what you want about Adenhart’s death but the Angels roster is much, much better than the Twins. It was not as big a job for Scoscia to get to the playoffs as it was for Gardenhire, imo.
Joe won the award when he probably didn’t deserve it because he did a great job woth the low budget Marlins and he stood up to an owner that writers hated. Thie year it is payback time he may deserve it but he’s no going to get it.
I think Scioscia has this one, but
Go Girardi!
The thing is, even though it wasn’t intentional, the Angels as a whole used Adenhart as a sort of motivation and “karma” like justification as to why they were winning.
The accident that tragically took the life of a young man was difficult, but the team and the fans came near to placing him in a near god-like status (like ancient Rome did with Caesar).
Yes, they had injuries. So did the Twins. So did the Yankees. The Twins had a bit of luck go their way, as the Tigers fell off and faded enough to give them their chance.
Scoscia did have a tough thing to deal with this year, not one that anyone would like to have to deal with. I just think they used the circumstance to their advantage to a point where I found it to be almost disturbing.
I think Gardenhire deserves it, for GGBG’s reasons.
As far as Tex is concerned, in his first year in NY, he led the league in HR’s, RBI, won a Gold Glove and a WS Ring.
That’s not “good” folks, that’s great.
He’s a great player just heading into the prime of his career.
If he stays healthy, he will have a monument in Monument Park when all is said and done.
I agree with Kate. Gardenhire should win it.
It will be interesting to see how the young arms of Texas hold up this coming year.
There was a lot of talk about how the White Sox abused their young arms in their big post season year, and the next year they were spent. The down turn was big.
I think we could see something similar in Texas after Nolan’s pushing of the pitchers to give it one more inning after you are done approach.
I wonder if (let’s say) josh towers would’ve been killed a day after he was called up to the majors, or (let’s say) any other yankee kid who was killed the day after he was called up to the majors & then the yankees went on to win the WS, would the crazy media credit the yanks for that? Or they would say what impact does the death of a minor league player who doesn’t know anyone in the majors have on the team??
Be real the media is crazy!!!
My prediction:
Scioscia
Gardenhire
Washington
Girardi
Too many folks will be wrapped up in the Adenhart story, like it or not. Girardi did a FANTASTIC job this year (yes, I’m biased), especially when people were calling for his head after a slow start. Look at how the bullpen was managed. And no, just because a team spends $$ doesn’t cement a championship. Someone has to “push the buttons” and get the team to live up to its potential.
What it should be:
Gardenhire
Girardi
Scioscia
Washington
No matter what the Twins do (lose free agents, overhaul the starting rotation), Gardenhire always seems to get the Twins to the postseason (or at least contend). This year he did a tremendous job given the significant injuries on the team.
Gardenhire may win the award but Joe Girardi gets the ring.
Why does Scioscia deserve it more this year?? I don’t get that point.. because his starting pitchers were hurt a lot?? I think he still had a good team throughout… I think Ron Gardenhire deserves it more because he had a team of Mauer/Morneau and a bunch of nobodys (including the pitchers) and overcame a big deficit to make the playoffs..
If he stays healthy, he will have a monument in Monument Park when all is said and done.
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And FINALLY the number 25 will be retired?
“The thing is, even though it wasn’t intentional, the Angels as a whole used Adenhart as a sort of motivation and “karma” like justification as to why they were winning.
The accident that tragically took the life of a young man was difficult, but the team and the fans came near to placing him in a near god-like status (like ancient Rome did with Caesar).”
I think that saying the Angels and their fans elevated Nick Adenhart to a “god-like status” is unfair. They became unified and galvanized by the tragedy and used it as a rallying cry during the season. I dont see anything wrong with that. Besides, when the Angels lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, I didnt hear anyone from the Angels saying how bewildered they were losing to the Yankees because they thought the Nick Adenhart tragedy pre-ordained them to win the championship.
I agree. Gardenhire over Scioscia.
I can’t see how Gardenhire loses in the AL. No Mauer for 6 weeks. No Morneau for the entire stretch run. A cast of nobodies in the rotation AND lineup….and they still made the playoffs.
Say what you want about Adenhart’s death but the Angels roster is much, much better than the Twins. It was not as big a job for Scoscia to get to the playoffs as it was for Gardenhire, imo.
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I don’t really care who wins – this may be one of the more stupid awards given (see Byron Scott this year and even our own joe girardi who got fired after winning it with the marlins)but..
gardenhire plays in the AL central – which may be the worst division in baseball (the only division that the winning team had less than 90 wins AND had 2 teams finish with less than 70 wins), he had mauer and morneau for basically 80-85% of the year (yankees had their best player out the same amount of time and their 2nd best pitcher out all year minus the 7 starts he got completely smashed in), he had a dominant closer (not too many teams can say that), he had decent starters and he had a very good lineup (cuddyer and kubel are good players) – oh did i mention the twins play in the worst division in baseball – so they get to fatten up and cleveland and kansas city and even the whitesox for close to 60 games this year) and even with this he won just 87 games…
i think the guy up in seattle, wakamatsu or ron washington deserve it more
I like Tracy in the NL. I think Bruce Bochy is a possible darkhorse.
SJ, I was a bit surprised that so many here don’t see what we see regarding Mark Texeria….
I dont think anyone could honestly gripe if any of the candidates Sam mentioned win the award. You could come up with logical reasoning to support all of those guys. sure you could come up with a couple of arguments against each one but I don’t see enough out there to be outraged or disgruntled by any of them. I think the reason it is so hard to pick one is that every manager has to work with drastically different circumstances in very different environments. Just look at it from the payroll perspective. There is a challenge in dealing with a high sallary team and the issues that can bring as much as there is in dealing with lower sallary players. Being successful in a small market can be extremely difficult and should be rewarded, as is working in the media hurt locker that is NY and other major markets. If Girardi doesn’t win I doubt he’ll be all that upset, after all, the world series trophy/ring is kind of a manager of the year award in itself (and you know Gardenhire or Scioscia would trade a manager of the year award for a world series ring any day)
The whole scoscia thing is crap the main reson people think big of him is because the injuries, well the yankees didn’t have both of their catchers for a while didn’t have a 3rd baseman for 6 weeks didn’t have a healthy starting 5 for the whole season had 2 4th outfielders in the outfield & a lf that is aged & no bulpen at all for the 1st month of the season a strugling tex for the 1st month of season & still managed to win 103 games……!!!!! How can you not vote for Joe Girardi??? The media is so crazy that they are hiding these things & only talk about other teams injuries & deaths
Well I forgot that the yanks were like 4-15 against 1st place teams until the allstar break!!!
Please wake up from your sleap & see the real story here!!!
It is a time I’m not ready to think about, but Tex has the intangibles (along with the tangibles) to be the next Yankee captain.
i wonder what time the scout/ organinizational meeting starts. I wish i could be a fly on the wall at that meeting .
If he’s just a good player Pat M, there aren’t any great players in baseball.
He’s a great player and its the biggest reason why the Red Sox are looking up at the Yankees, and may continue to be, for the next several years.
There isn’t a single player on the FA or trade markets that’s in Tex’s class this off-season.
Further showing the importance of the Yankees signing him.
Tex will never be the Yankee captain. Ever.
NOOOOO Hokiehill….isn’t Jeter going to be the Yankees captain forever? (altho I agree, Tex would be a good choice if and when Jeter retires)
Rob L.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Tex will never be the Yankee captain. Ever.
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Why not? I think Tex would make an excellent captain.
upstate kate
November 18th, 2009 at 10:15 am
NOOOOO Hokiehill….isn’t Jeter going to be the Yankees captain forever? (altho I agree, Tex would be a good choice if and when Jeter retires)
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Of course Jeter will be the Captain forever. Why are we even discussing this??????
From what has been reported, Tex is already a club house leader during team meetings. He also “plays the game the right way” like Jeter. For example, what about the way he was hustling on Castillo’s dropped ball? Not every player would have run it out, and since he did, the Yankees won the game.
I still think scoring from first on the Castillo dropped pop up is the quintessential Teixeira play of 2009.
Tex will be the captain of the team after Jeter retires, IMO.
I can’t remember the last time a first year Yankee player spoke in a team meeting (the June meeting in Atlanta w/Jeter and Cashman), which gives us a window into how much respect he has in the locker room.
I keep hearing about players that “plays the game the right way”. If this is the case, then it stands to reason there are players who play the game the wrong way. Please, I want to know who they are.
Disco Stu. They put Adenharts picture up on a wall in the stadium, went out to touch his image in every home game, they poured libations all over his jersey, Hunter mentioned him numerous times. They made a show out of it. The media caught on to the hype of it because the fans and the team made a big show of everything being about winning it for Adenhart, how Adenhart would have wanted this or that, how much Adenhart would have enjoyed this moment. They are even talking about making the picture of him on the wall perminent and fans are saying his jersey number should be retired.
Bronx Jeers
November 18th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I still think scoring from first on the Castillo dropped pop up is the quintessential Teixeira play of 2009.
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Agreed. I remember reading a recap of the game, and Tex said as soon as he slid into home plate he asked Jeter “what just happened?” LOL
People are somewhat down on Texiera for his post-season. A post-season might not have happened without him. A gold glove while leading the league in home runs and RBIs pretty much says all one needs to know. The best thing is I am confident he will continue this level of play into the future.
I live a long way from New York and saw one game this year–Texiera scoring on Castillo’s dropped pop-up. What a fame that was. I try to forget Joba walking everyone that day.
My comments about Tex have nothing to do with Donnie. I love Tex – what’s not to love? He can hit for a good average, has power, drives in runs and plays a superb 1B. I just think he’s not a truly great player (have to strongly disagree with you, Vinny-b, about Tex being the best position player in a decade). When Alex was out and we needed him desperately, Tex was nowhere to be found. It’s not a coincidence that his hot streak started when Alex came back. I only commented on Tex because I disagreed with Pat M as to Tex being a HOFer (though I suppose that’s possible), having his # retired and getting multiple rings. The last is yet to be determined, but I just don’t think of Tex as a legendary player like that).
As to Donnie, I worshipped him as a kid and he’s still my all-time favorite player. He was something special to hang on to when the Yankees were so bad, and then there is the fact that his bad back curtailed his certain HOF career and the fact that he never won a WS. I will always treasure the fact that, when he had his chance, he just killed it in the post-season.
Washington had better not get it – his team folded down the stretch. Joe or Soscia should get it.
Wow, SJ – couldn’t disagree with you more. Everyone on the 2009 Yankees has a ring, even Ramiro Pena. It’s great that Tex lead the league in RBI and tied for the league in HR, but he’ll have to do that for a long time before I even think of him getting a monument. Doing it for one year doesn’t make you great.
I like Tex A LOT, but I’m not ready to declare him the next yankee captain after one season. I guess I’m just biased because I grew up in the age of the “dynasty boys” but I like the fact that our captain is homegrown.
However, why are we talking about this?? Do.Not.Like.
“this is such a dumb comment and so many people seem to make it.”
tex’s friend-
i think you mean you disagree.
where would the yankee’s have been had they not signed texeira, sabathia, and burnett?
you know they probably wouldn’t have won the whole thing or even made the playoffs.
that said, a lot of the yankee’s payroll is for show biz purposes .
does anyone think jeter will be worth more than twenty million on the field a few years from now?
but he will be worth it at the box office, at the turnstiles, and for cable contracts.
there are a lot of yankee players that people will pay to see for their celebrity status. i’d say that 50 million of the yankee payroll is for show biz and 150 million for on the field.
… and it might be more like 80 million and 120 million, hard to measure.
i think the yankees should pay the extra money to make more money. it’s a good business model. but when the yankees still spend 120-150 million for on the field performance, when other teams like the twins are spending 70 million, money has to be factored in when rating a job a gm or manager does.
i am not so sure we win the ws without tex’s glove during the postseason
remember the inning where i believe he made all 3 plays for outs with 1 going home
he might not of had a good offensive postseason but his glove was fantastic
SJ, you spent the off-season explaining why Tex is a very good player, but not elite. Why exactly is he a great player? Not only is he a great player, but he’s Monument Park type of great? That’s reserved (or should be) for the DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle types….Jeter and Mo will be honored there someday. If Tex does get a monument, it means he’s been absolutely legendary – hey, I hope he does become that.
I don’t remember what Tex said (or if he did speak in the locker room), but I think it was Cashman who basically righted the ship when he showed up. It makes no difference to me if Tex becomes a captain or not….I totally agree that signing Tex took the legs right out from under the Sox and was a difference maker; I just don’t see how that means he’s an all-time great.
Newpost
Austinmac, just because someone doesn’t think they are an all-time great who deserves a monument doesn’t mean that person is down on Tex. I love Tex and I’m thrilled we’ve got him for 8 years (though let’s see how he does when he’s 33/34/35)…….
sj44-
i agree totally about teixeira. if the red sox had gotten him, the whole year plays out differently.
cashman beating out theo on teixeira was a tipping point that will throw the red sox out of their game for years down the road.
it was an incredibly good use of the money cashman has at his fingertips. the red sox were really trying to make it a competition between managements and cashman getting a player like teixeira makes it a competition between who has the best players.
the red sox have to go out , spend money, and get some players or they will be in second place for the foreseeable future.
teixeira is just rock solid as a player and a leader.
No consideration for Wak? Gotta think taking a 101 loss team to 85 wins will get him at least a couple votes…