2011 Manager of the Year Award Winners Announced

Kirk Gibson for the National League and Joe Maddon for the American League each comfortably won their league’s respective Manager of the Year Awards on Wednesday. Gibson received 28 of the 32 first place votes in the National League voting and Maddon received 26 of the 28 first place votes in the American League. Almost as big a story as how easily the two managers won was the fact that Tony LaRussa only received one first place vote while coming in third in the NL voting! But more on LaRussa later…

NL Manager of the Year Voting (Courtesy of the BBWAA.COM website):

Kirk Gibson, Arizona Diamondbacks – 28 first place votes – 152 points

Ron Roenicke, Milwaukee Brewers – 3 first place votes – 92 points

Tony LaRussa, St Louis Cardinals – 1 first place vote – 24 points

AL Manager of the Year Voting (Courtesy of the BBWAA.COM website):

Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay Rays – 26 first place votes – 133 points

Jim Leyland, Detroit Tigers – 1 first place vote – 54 points

Ron Washington, Texas Rangers – 1 first place vote – 31 points

Kirk Gibson took a team which finished last with 65 wins in 2010 and turned them into a lean, mean fighting machine! Managers of the year are almost exclusively picked from the teams that make the post-season, but extra weight is always given to the managers that went “worst to first” as the saying goes. No one predicted the Arizona Diamondbacks to do much better than their previous 65 win season. But, they ended up with 29 more wins (94 total) and easily won their division, thus making Gibson an immediate candidate to win the award in just his first year of managing!

Joe Maddon also managed a team that was picked by the experts as not having a chance to compete. Not when the Rays had slashed over 30 million from their 2010 payroll! The small market Rays lost All-Stars Carl Crawford, Matt Garza and Carlos Pena. All three players were a huge part of the team’s being competitive the previous 3 years. In 2011, Maddon survived an injury to his star 3^rd baseman Evan Longoria, the shocking retirement of the Rays biggest off season pickup Manny Ramirez (only one week into the season!), and he had to guide a very young pitching rotation. (The Rays broke the MLB record for the most consecutive pitching starts made by players under 30 years old). But Maddon, who also won the award in 2008, knows what it takes to guide a young but talented team.

So let’s heartily congratulate the two winners (they both deserve it), but let’s also be very honest… will anyone remember them winning next year? For example, does anyone remember who won last year’s awards? The Manager of the Year Award is arguably the most subjective of all the awards given, so I can’t blame any of you for not recalling last year’s winners (Ron Gardenhire and Bud Black for those keeping score).

After all, how do you measure managing? Is it win total? Then where was Joe Girardi and Charlie Manuel in the voting?! Is it simply turning a team around from a losing record to a winning record? (Gibson’s case) Or is it simply based on the most improvement in wins a team has? Jim Leyland’s Tigers, for example, improved 14 games from 2010 while Maddon’s Rays actually won 5 fewer!

Or is it other measurable facts; like team payroll, or the number of all-stars on the roster or even the average age of your players? Should these be the tiebreakers for close voting? Perhaps it’s only the intangibles like clubhouse culture, instilling that “winning attitude” that should count. But what came first, actually winning or the winning attitude? Is there any team that was able to win without the “winning attitude”?

Some might even try comparing managers by what they do on the field, the number of times they hit and run, bunted, switched pitchers or even the number of times they were thrown out of a game! With today’s statistical analysis there is a stat kept for everything, so why not how many time a manager touched his left cheek while giving the signs?

I am speaking, perhaps, a bit tongue in cheek while trying to make a point. The point that there isn’t any one recognizable grouping of factors when voting for the Manager of Year Award. My case in point is Tony LaRussa (who I am personally glad didn’t win). After all, didn’t LaRussa just do the same exact thing with the Cards that Maddon did with the Rays? How many times do teams come back from so far down to make the post-season? It should also be pointed out that if the voting was done after the World Series, instead of immediately after the regular season, LaRussa would have probably won the award over Gibson!

Baseball fans may not always remember the years they won, but they remember MVPs and CY Young Award winners. They also remember most of the gold glove winners and many of the All-Stars. Once a player has achieved a great award it stays with them as a legacy. How few managers this is true of. The managers most remembered are the ones who were on the teams that won world championships, plain and simple. The manager who will be most remembered, unfortunately, from the 2011 season is the one from the World Champion St Louis Cardinals.

There is no denying that their managers, to some extent, helped the teams who reached the post-season. But by how much, we can’t really properly quantify. And that is the near thankless nature of the position of manager. That is the reason it is acceptable to celebrate Gibson's and Maddon’s fine seasons and then, of course, just as acceptable to forget about them!