Managers of the Year

The manager of the year awards were given out today and they were Jim Tracey of the Colorado Rockies and Mike Scioscia of the Anahiem Angels. I was 2-2 on this one and now am 3-2 overall on the awards picks. Tomorrow will be the NL Cy Young and lets see how I do on that. I will have some Mike Scioscia reaction tomorrow.

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.

Mike Scioscia trash talking

Mike Scioscia manager of the Anaheim Angels who lost to the Yankees in the ALCS this past season had some words about the Yankees. He was speaking at a fundraiser recently and said this " I don't care if the Yankees go out and spend 350 million next year, we are going to beat them because we have the team." I don't know if he forgot that the Yankees knocked them out of the playoffs and went on to win the World Series. I also find it funny he is talking this early, the hotstove didn't really even kick off yet and he is opening his mouth. I understand being confident in your team and your abilities but you don't even know what the teams are going to look like at this point. I also question him basically saying the Yankees and Angels are the two best teams and will be in the ALCS again next year. I think this is very interesting stuff, maybe he said it in joking but this is what we know coming out of the Orange County Register.

Yankee News

There really isn't much going on in the hotstove league as teams still have the right to negotiate with their own free agents. Thursday will start the real hotstove as free agents then have the right to negotiate and sign with any team they wish. I am going to start looking at the Yankees and Mets and then baseball in general at that time. Here are a couple of items with the Yankees though regarding arbitration. The Yankees officially declined the option on Sergio Mitre for 2010, he is still under the Yankees control and is arbitration eligible. The Yankees want to have as many arms as possible stocked up and because he will be cheap I am sure they will keep him. I am guessing they do the same with Chad Guadin to go along with Ian Kennedy and Alfredo Aceves if he isn't in the bullpen as the extra guys in case of injury or need in the starting rotation. The Yankees do have 4 other arbitration decisions to make and they are Melky Cabrera- he will get offered something. Brian Bruney I am sure will be offered because he does have a good arm and if Hughes and Chamberlain are going to be in the rotation well then they need more bullpen guys. Chad Guadin I spoke about above and the trickiest one is going to be Chien-Ming Wang. I am guessing they will not offer him arbitration as he will then at least get 5 million but I do think they will work something out to see if he can get healthy and back to form. If he is able to come back and be close to what he was then that is the biggest pickup the Yankees can make. They can then put Hughes or Joba in the pen and have the other one as the 5th starter and have plenty of reserve options for injury or ineffectiveness.

AL Cy Young

The American League Cy Young is about to be announced in roughly 10 minutes. The serious candidates are Zach Greinke from the Royals who came back from some anxiety disorder to have a unbelievable year. Felix Hernandez of the Mariners who I don't think a lot of people realize how good he was because he plays in Seattle and CC Sabathia who won 19 games and of course helped lead the Yankees to the World Championship. The writers are only supposed to be voting on the regular season and I wouldn't expect them to be influenced by the Yankees winning and CC Sabathia being great in the postseason but who knows. I am going to pick Zach Greinke to win it. I will be back in a little while with the announcement and some reaction to it. UPDATE: Zach Greinke of the Royals won the award in a landslide. Felix Hernandez of the Mariners finished second with Justin Verlander third and CC Sabathia fourth. I think fourth is a little disappointing for CC but I am sure he doesn't mind since he has that nice shiny ring to show off. Tomorrow will be the NL Cy Young. I am glad I got this one right since yesterday I struck out with my predictions of the Rookie of the Year.