SB Nation Baseball Awards: Manager of the Year

by Eric Simon on Nov 3, 2008 2:09 PM EST

In advance of the BBWAA end-of-season crapfest, SB Nation baseball held its own postseason awards, which we hope will set the bar pretty high in terms of somewhat arbitrary awards voting. There's a pretty good mix of folks among our 33 baseball sites, with varying degrees of statistical inclination. As with the BBWAA awards, the voting for our awards took place after the season ended but before the playoffs began, so performances in the postseason had no bearing on the results.

Today we have the Manager of the Year awards, which are basically just awarded to the manager of the best team in the league, with some consideration given to teams that vastly outperformed expectations.

Here, then are the results. The rest of the awards will be posted throughout the remainder of the week, culminating with the MVP awards on Thursday.

National League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Lou Piniella	9	4	2	59
Charlie Manuel	2	6	5	33
Fredi Gonzalez	3	2	3	24
Joe Torre	2	2	3	19
Tony LaRussa	2	-	-	10
Ned Yost	-	3	1	10
Cecil Cooper	-	1	2	5
Manny Acta	1	-	-	5
Dale Sveum	-	1	1	4
Jerry Manuel	-	-	1	1

American League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Joe Maddon	16	1	-	83
Ron Gardenhire	-	7	4	25
Mike Scioscia	-	4	5	17
Terry Francona	-	3	2	11
Ozzie Guillen	1	-	2	7
Cito Gaston	-	-	3	3
Trey Hillman	-	1	-	3

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Our Manuel

gets a bad rap b/c he didn’t get the team into the playoffs, but I still say he was a fantastic manager this year, and should be commended for getting us into a position where we were even in he race down the stretch. The only NL manager who had a better winning % than Jerry’s .591 this season was Sweet Lou. By contrast, that other Manuel had a .568. I’m not saying he should win the award, but he should have finished higher than a guy who got fired in September, his replacement who managed 19 games, and a guy whose team lost 102 games. It’s unfair for Jerry to be judged by Willie’s failures…Oh, well.

on another note, it makes me physically ill to think that Charlie Manuel might finish in the top 2 of the Manager of the Year Award, considering he was as good as fired a year and a half ago. He’s baseball’s version of Tom Coughlin, only with about 1/10th as much game management skill. He owes Willie a fruit-basket.

by cjmulrain on Nov 3, 2008 3:18 PM EST reply actions

Even with that said,

I’m still very afraid of Manuel this upcoming season. He lastest quotes about statiscal numbers and playing well in the regular season not being an indication of playing well in the playoffs don’t sit well with me at all. My biggest gripes with Willie was his lack of playing Ramon Castro, playing Endy too much (as in starting,) odd bullpen choices (Felicano as LOOGY, Show pitching against both, and flat out not believing platooning, perfering “hot hands.”)

Jerry seemed to rectify this early on, playing Castro more, Endy would enter games when it was asssured his ABs would be minimized to 1 if he even got one, and the Evans/Murphy/Tatis/Church/Easley/Reyes platoons. However, I remember in early-Septemeber, Manual stated that he would be going with “his guys” rather than continue with platoons. Easley and Tatis got injured and it never really came up. But still, I worry about the direction Manuel wants to take the team and fear that the statiscal people in the mets told him to play Castro and Platoon and once we started winning, he felt like he could do whatever he wanted…but I’m speculating.

On the plus side, Manuel can obviously handle the media in NY. Brief aside, I was looking at Schenider’s gamelog to see if Manuel played him more in Sept, (Yes, except for the last couple of games, look at the W-L.)

Sep 22 CHC L 9-5 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .342 .371 .713 .258
Sep 23 CHC W 6-2 Did not play
Sep 24 CHC L 9-6 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .340 .369 .709 .257
Sep 25 CHC W 7-6 Did not play
Sep 26 FLA L 6-1 4 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .339 .367 .706 .257
Sep 27 FLA W 2-0 Did not play
Sep 28 FLA L 4-2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .339 .367 .706 .257

Random sample but during the last 7 games if Schneider got in the game we lost, weird.

by Sokojoe on Nov 3, 2008 3:42 PM EST up reply actions

I agree

That quote worries the crap out of me. If he actually thinks/manages like that then I’m worried.

by Gina on Nov 3, 2008 3:48 PM EST up reply actions

yea

those quotes worried me too, but he didn’t really seem to manage that way, which is weird. I’d rather have a manager who manages well and says dumb things than one who says the right things and then doesn’t manage like it.

And regardless of how he manages in the future, he should be commended for how well he managed this past season.

by cjmulrain on Nov 3, 2008 3:52 PM EST up reply actions

hey sokojoe

That probably is more reflective of Met performances vs. right-handed pitching than Schneider per-se. (As well as which righties they faced that day).

I will not allow the denigration of the life essence

by GenJackRipper on Nov 3, 2008 11:24 PM EST reply actions