Todays awards-Mangers of the Year

I misspoke yesterday when I said today would be the NL Cy Young, that will be tomorrow. Today the AL and NL manger of the years will be announced. The awards will be announced at 2:00PM. I know a lot of people especially Yankee fans will say that Joe Girardi deserves it and if you are going by on field accomplishment only well then of course especially after missing the playoffs last year and then bringing them back to a World Championship this year. He will get consideration but I think Mike Scioscia will win the award and I do think he deserves it. I don't particularly like the guy but you have to look at what the Angels went through this year and see that he did a wonderful job with them. It all started with the tragic death of Angels Pitcher Nick Adenhart and then they had a lot of injuries especially early on and came back from all of that to make the ALCS and lose to the Yankees in 6 games. I think Ron Gardenhire will get a lot of votes and he deserves it also bringing them to the playoffs after chasing the Tigers all year and then finally catching them and defeating them in the classic one game playoff. He had a limited roster especially with all that young pitching and got them to the playoffs but I don't think anyone will be able to overcome the fact that Mike Scioscia dealt with something that no one else did and no one else could even imagine having to deal with. I do think Joe Girardi will get some votes but there will be a lot that would never vote for the Yankees manager because of the resources. Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers and also Don Wakimatsu of the Seattle Mariners deserve consideration but I don't think they will get much. The National League is an interesting one as Freddi Gonzales did a good job with the Florida Marlins, Charlie Manuel will get some consideration for taking his team to a second straight NL Pennant and doing it with no bullpen at all. I think Jim Tracey of the Colorado Rockies will win this award, they were a dead team that he took over for in May and took them to the postseason which is a great job by him. I think Tony Larussa will also get some consideration for taking a St Louis team that no one was predicting to 91 wins and a postseason spot. I am going to go with Jim Tracey though. I was 0-2 with the rookie of the years and I did get the Cy Young right yesterday so i am 1-2 overall and hope to get on the winning side with these two picks, we will find out shortly. I will be back with the announcement and some reaction later on.

Rookie of the Year Awards announced

The Rookie of the Year awards were announced this afternoon and the winners are. Chris Coghlan of the Florida Marlins won it in the National League. He is a leftfielder and Oakland Athletics closer Andrew Bailey won it in the American League. I was wrong on both, I had picked Elvis Andrus to win it in the American League and Tommy Hansen in the National League. I guess you can say both were a bit of a suprise as they weren't the favorites to win the award. Elvis Andrus finished second in the AL voting and J.A. Happ finished second in the National League. Chris Coghlan had a strong second half as the Marlins leadoff hitter. He batted 321 with 9 homeruns and 31 doubles in 128 games. He also scored 84 runs and drove in 47. He was called up in May and led NL rookies in batting avg, runs, hits, total bases and on base percentage. He was the third Marlins player in 7 years to win the award. The others were Dontrelle Willis in 2003 and Hanley Ramirez in 2006. Andrew Bailey was 6-3 and had 26 saves. He led the AL rookies with a 1.84 era. He is the 8th A's player to win the award which ties them with the New York Yankees for most in the AL. Bailey made the team out of spring training and got an oppurtunity to close due to injuries and made the most of it. He was the A's lone representative in the All Star Game in July. Congratulations to both of these guys who worked hard and deserve it, it is nice to see some new stars coming up and lets hope they continue to work hard and respect the game.