November 18, 2009

With the BBWAA award both Manager of the Year Awards today, Landon Evanson makes the case for Ron Gardenhire:

When it comes to Manager of the Year balloting, however, Gardenhire has become an afterthought. Apparently it’s old hat for Minnesota’s skipper to have his team in contention when the dust settles in late September.

But having just led a .500 (68-68) squad that was seven games back on September 6 to a division championship without the services of an MVP or his number two starter means just one thing.

The days of taking Ron Gardenhire for granted are over.

The Twins played half their schedule without Kevin Slowey and minus 2006 AL MVP Justin Morneau from September 12 forward. Minnesota went 17-4 in the absence of Johnny Canuck and caught the Detrot Tigers to claim a division championship to close out the Teflon Confines. Again, Gardenhire’s fifth Central title.

I have to disagree here. The Twins own two of the best hitters in the game and maybe the best leadoff hitter in the majors. Their staff does not walk batters and they can bring in an excellent closer at the end. With all that and a weak division, they were .500 on September sixth and only won 87 games, the last win coming in an extra game.

My choice in the AL is Joe Girardi. Joe took active steps to improve himself as a manger this season, from team building outings like the pool hall day during spring training to working on better relations with the press. As much as the anti-Yankees faction likes to think the 2009 season was a cake walk for the team, New York was two game under .500 and 6 1/2 games out after games of May 12th. They then came back to take the AL East lead on May 29th, but fell back to five games out as late as June 24th. Girardi reworked the bullpen, kept his positive attitude and managed a 13 game turnaround from that point.

I thought the manager in the AL who did more than expected with his team was Ron Washington. I had him third on my ballot. I put Francona second for the Red Sox turning in a very strong performance as Terry dealt with an aging lineup and the lack of production from David Ortiz. Scioscia did not make my ballot because the Angels winning had to do with their offensive surge, and that was credited to Bobby Abreu. In fact, the Angels offense this year moved away from Scioscia’s put the ball in play philosophy and thrived.

In the NL, my choice goes to Jim Tracy. He took over a team with an 18-28 record, sitting in last place, and led them to the playoffs and almost to a division titile. The Dodgers won 95 games, so the team didn’t collapse, the Rockies simply played a phenomenal 74-42 under Tracy. Joe Torre takes the number two spot on my ballot as he needed to deal with the Manny Ramirez suspension and a starting staff that seemed to be on the verge of tanking, using his bullpen deftly to hide that starting pitching weakness. Fredi Gonzalez gets the third spot on my ballot for keeping the Marlins in contention.

The BBWAA announces the awards at their web site at 2 PM EST, although the countdown clock on their web site seems to indicate 10 AM.

Posted by David Pinto at 9:15 am | Awards, Management | Permalink | 3 Comments