I was very surprised yesterday when they announced that Rocco Baldelli of the Minnesota Twins had won the American League Manager of the Year award. It’s not that Baldelli wasn’t a deserving candidate or that the Twins didn’t have a good enough season for him to win. I just honestly thought that with everything the New York Yankees went through injury wise that their manager Aaron Boone would win this award.
The race was very tight between Baldelli and Boone as both of them received 1st place votes. Baldelli also picked up 13 2nd place votes while Boone received just 9 2nd place votes. To round out their voting Baldelli got 2 3rd place votes while Boone got 4.
The third finalist was Kevin Cash of the Tampa Bay Rays, but he ended up a distant 3rd in the voting, Cash received 3 1st place, 3 2nd place and 9 3rd place votes.
As for the rest of the managers receiving votes. Bob Melvin of the Oakland A’s finished 4th getting 3 2nd and 10 3rd place votes. A.J. Hinch of the Houston Astros was 5th getting 1 1st, 1 2nd and 4 3rd place votes while Terry Francona of the Cleveland Indians got 1 3rd place vote.
While the voting in the American League was close it was even closer in the race for National League Manager of the Year. Of course after looking at the vote totals I still have some questions.
As it turned out Mike Shildt of the St. Louis Cardinals beat out Craig Counsell of the Milwaukee Brewers by 7 points. Shildt picked up 10 1st place votes while Counsell actually got more 1st place votes receiving 13. Shildt made up ground on the ballots by receiving 14 2nd place votes while Counsell got 6. Shildt got 3 3rd place votes to Counsell’s 5 to round out the voting.
The third finalist in the National League was Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker who won this award last season. He received 3 1st, 6 2nd and 12 3rd place votes this season to finish in 3rd place.
Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers grabbed 4th place getting 4 1st, 1 2nd and 1 3rd place vote. Dave Martinez of the Washington Nationals received 3 2nd place and 6 3rd place votes while Tory Lovullo of the Arizona Diamondbacks picked up 2 3rd place votes.
I have to tell you I’m very confused by how the National League voting went. I understand that post season performance doesn’t count in voting for these awards, but even considering that was there a manager who did a better job than Dave Martinez did last season? At one point last season the Nationals where 19-31 and I was one of the people who was saying that Martinez should be fired. Under Martinez the Nationals made a complete turn around finishing 93-69 and grabbing a wild card spot.
Now Shildt did a nice job of dealing with the injuries the Cardinals had this season; guiding them to the National League Central title. Counsell got another good season out of a Brewers team that never seems to spend a lot of money or make big deadline deals. Both of these managers did a good job last season, but neither of them brought their team back from the position that Martinez brought the Nationals back from.
Then to kind of add to it I had just figured Martinez would finish a strong 4th in the balloting. I was shocked when I looked at the voting results to find out he finished 5th and didn’t even receive a 1st place vote. I would be very interested to know what qualifications these voters used to choose a manager of the year.
Tonight Major League Baseball will announce the winner of the Cy Young awards. In the American League the final three are Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander of the Houston Astros along with Charlie Morton of the Tampa Bay Rays. The National League finalist are Hyun-Jin Ryu of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals and Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets.
deGrom is looking to go back to back as he won this award last season. Scherzer is looking to pick up his third National League Cy Young and fourth overall. He won back to back in 2016 & 2017 in the NL and picked up the American League Cy Young in 2013 when he was a member of the Detroit Tigers. Ryu is looking to win his first Cy Young and if he does he’ll be the first Dodgers pitcher to win since Clayton Kershaw won back to back in 2013 & 2014.
Verlander is looking to become a second time Cy Young award winner as he picked up his first one in 2011 when he was with the Detroit Tigers. Cole and Morton are looking to become first time Cy Young winners.
Who are you picking to win?
While I believe most of us where asleep the San Francisco Giants hired a new manager. After being fired by the Philadelphia Phillies after two seasons Gabe Kapler is now the new manager of the Giants.
In his two seasons with the Phillies Kapler went 161-163. Philadelphia was 80-82 in his first season and finished in 3rd place. Last season the Phillies went 81-81 and finished in 4th place under Kapler.
It was admittedly a disappointing season for Philadelphia last year as the brought in big money free agent Bryce Harper; so it wasn’t a big shock when they decided to move on from Kapler. Joe Girardi was hired to replace Kapler in Philadelphia.
Kapler will be replacing a sure fire Hall of Famer in the Giants dugout. Bruce Bochy managed the Giants from 2007 until last season when he retired. Now Bochy overall record may be just a little under .500 at 1052-1054 what’s more important is he won three World Series titles while managing in San Francisco.
It appears that the Giants would like to try and rebuild under President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi and newly hired General Manager Scott Harris; so Kapler’s record may not end up being very good to start.
What should help Kapler weather a rebuild in San Francisco is his history with Zaidi. Kapler was the Dodgers Director of Player Development while Zaidi was part of their front office; so they’ve worked together before and hopefully have similar ideas on how the Giants will go about their business.
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