UPDATE – 2:10 PM Eastern
Who knew shooting fish in a barrel was so problematic? Now Ron Gardenhire has his record-breaking FIFTH second-place finish in A.L. Manager of the Year voting (he’s never won one) and Mike Scioscia has his second trophy. I understand the the Angels overcame the tragedy of Nick Adenhart’s death in the first week of the season to come together and win the division that they were heavily favoured to win anyway. It was a talented group with a history of success that added a guy in Bobby Abreu who had a fantastic season, and they had the expected result – even finishing with three fewer wins than they had the season before.
The Twins had no starting pitching, very little offense beyond The Man Who Will Be MVP, and even less after Morneau went down. It should have been Gardenhire.
Oh, well, two for four so far………
11:00 AM Eastern
These are easy – like shooting fish in a barrel.
Jim Tracy took over for a fired Clint Hurdle in Colorado on May 28th with the team 18-28 and dead last in the N.L. West. After the managerial change, the Rockies went 74-42 to finish with 92 wins and the National League wild card, and in the process Troy Tulowitzki’s career was resurrected.
Tracy is the N.L. Manager of the Year, and may even win the award unanimously.
The Minnesota Twins were a .500 team when they woke up on September 7th, seven games out of first place and about to find out that they’d lost their slugger and MVP candidate, Justin Morneau, for the rest of the season with a back injury. They came to Toronto and took two out of three from the Blue Jays, picking up a game and a half in the division, and used that series as the spark for an 18-8 run to finish the season, forcing a one-game playoff with the Tigers, which they won.
Ron Gardenhire is the American League Manager of the Year. And no, true believers, Cito Gaston won’t be getting any votes.
Tomorrow – the N.L. Cy Young! Does a former Blue Jay take it for a second time? Not if you ask me.
Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!
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Hey Mike,
Two questions: Is Wainwright your pick for the NL Cy, and where would Carpenter, and Lee be in your top 5?
Secondly, What’s your take on the Blue Jays raising their seasons ticket prices and removing the trip to Florida in the seasons ticket package? Is this the right move after the decline in attendance this year? I can understand doing away with the Florida trip, but why the price raise now in a “re-loading” year?
Thanks Mike, keep up the good work!
MW: That’s more than two questions. See the new blog post for the answer, and Cliff Lee isn’t even in the conversation. Secondly, the Blue Jays have not raised season-ticket prices. They’ve re-classified some sections – basically rezoned the Dome a bit – and a result, the prices for 24 season-ticket holders are going up. 99.2% of season ticket holders are unaffected. In my mind, the Jays should make an exception for those 24 people and allow them to be grandfathered in at their old prices, that would be fair.
- Rob in StratfordMike, Gardenhire doesn’t win the manager of the year, it has to be Scioscia. He had to deal with a staff that was injured, a bullpen that was injured, old legs in the outfield and a death!
MW: You were right, it was Scioscia. But seriously – the Angels had more talent than the Twins and were in a weaker division.
- RoManager of the Year is a bs award anyway Mike. Writers generally follow the same pattern – the team who made the playoffs as a surprise. This is an award that should be voted on by the Managers themselves. They would vote for the BEST manager – the guy they hate to face in the other dugout, the guy who always seems one step ahead. I think that would make for some interesting debate.
MW: Managers vote for Gold Gloves, which is all that needs to be said about letting managers vote for things. The ANgels didn’t make the playoffs as a surprise, by the way.
- NeilIf you are AA do you wait until after Lackey signs and try to get a desperate team or do you grab as many suitors as possible and sell to the highest bidder?
If you had to pick a FA to sign on a 1 year contract just for the chance to trade him at the deadline, who would it be? It would seem to be a way to turn cash into prospects. Worst case scenario is you have the player for a year.
MW: 1 – I get the best deal I can and don’t worry about when it happens. 2 – Oakland did that with Matt Holliday last year, but remember, they picked him up in a trade with one year left on his contract. There’s no player of that calibre on the free agent market this year who would be looking for a one-year deal, so chances are Adrian Beltre might be the only guy you could get for that, and even that’s a maybe.
- jeremyI agree that Scioscia should not have won. If he’s such a great mgr, how come his team played like frightened ducks against The Mercenaries in the WS? I know,the voting excludes that part of the season. He is one of the best at those BB signals..hand touches face etc. He can do it really quickly. As for Abreu, he was useless with men on and either nervous or stupid (probably both)with his overrun of 2nd in a very key situation.It seemed that all who played the Mercenaries wanted to give them extra outs….they’re such a fine, admirable bunch of greedy narcissists.
MW: First off, you need to realize that almost every professional athlete is a mercenary, the Yankees can simply afford to hire more of the most expensive ones. Second off, don’t disparage Bobby Abreu for one stupid baserunning mistake. The guy hit .338/.437/.465 with runners on base this season – that’s far from useless.
- Carlosmichael,
- darrell bishophave to agree with you again re: the nod for manager of the yr. going to the minny skip gardenhire (even though we now find out it went to the other guy from cali.)
just the fact that he was able to stay the course with his group, keep the bus on the road & moving forward (especially as you said) after losing morneau for the yr. at a time when they still had some serious catch up to do.
i’m certain we all thought the exact same thing when that news broke didn’t we? “well that’s it for the twins i guess……”
and not to even mention (but i will anyway) this guy seems to be able to manage this out of his troops on a yrly. basis. he clearly knows what he’s doing this guy. he’s good.
now mind you, to be truthful & totally objective in observing his success within his tenure, he probably wouldn’t have a single playoff appearance to his credit if in the dreaded zone of the a.l. east but obviously that’s totally out of his control so he doesn’t need to concern himself with that cause’ he’s only “dancing with what he brung” as they say.
but still doesn’t make it not true i’m afraid.
regardless, this guy doesn’t get nearly enough credit it seems to me…..
Thanks for the clarification on the ticket prices. I agree that they should be grandfathered in.
I will work on my counting skills. ;)
Thanks Mike, Have a great day.
- Rob in StratfordMike, just a quick comment re question #1.
I also read the comments where the Jays claim that the price “reclass” affects only 24 Season Ticket holders, representing (by subtraction) .8 percent of their S/T base.
The math of this says that if 24 tickets is .008, then 100% is 3000. Are the Jays claiming to have only 3000 Season Ticket holders?
Seems pretty low to me!!!
MW: It does, but they may only have that many 81-game same-seat season-ticket holders. The rest of the grand total could be made up of season-ticket equivalencies.
- NormWilner: The Yankees can afford to because baseball is the one major sport that disregards an attempt at a level playing field. It probably won’t change until Ichabod Crane lite either retires or dies – take your pick. My point was: where was Abreu’s great numbers in the WS? Sure his numbers were OK in the reg season but that just emphasized his severe under-achievment with the bat in the big tamale plus he cost his team dearly with his bonehead base running. Why do you defend these turkeys?
MW: What turkeys, Abreu or the Yankees? You can’t look at a six-game sample and decide whether or not a player can get the job done. Even with his rough ALCS, Abreu is still a career .284/.392/.416 hitter in the playoffs. And did his .556/.692/.778 line in the first round not count?
- CarlosWith all due respect Mike, you basically admitted in your column that the Angels overcame adversity to win – yes they were favored to begin the year, but then they had the tragedy. “I understand the the Angels overcame the tragedy of Nick Adenhart’s death in the first week of the season to come together and win the division that they were heavily favoured to win anyway.” Thus, the fact they won – despite being favoured – was a surprise. What’s the difference between this win and a win due to an injury to a key player – its overcoming adversity to surprise and win. I still believe managers should vote on this award.
MW: The tragic death of Nick Adenhart didn’t make the Angels any less a favourite to win the division. It’s a devastating loss, without question, but in a baseball sense this was a talented kid who wasn’t supposed to be anything close to a major contributor this season and who had only made four starts in the major leagues. May he rest in peace.
- NeilI took “24 season-ticket-holders” to mean 24 people in whose names the tickets are held, with most holding a couple each.
MW: You may be right.
- Cincinnatus C.Mike ,just curious, I thought overbay would be traded to Seattle for a player(morrow). Where do you think Overbay will now end up?
Thanks and Happy holidays
MW: He may well still wind up in Seattle – they could use a guy like him – but given the fact that the Jays have twice been involved in trades that the Mariners have been in on and Overbay hasn’t moved, they might not want him. It’s far from a guarantee that he’ll be traded.
- bob stanley