Justin Masterson approves. (Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.smugmug.com and used with permission.)
So, recently, I made the decision to join a group called the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA). It’s a wonderful way to network with like-minded bloggers and I’ve met some great people through the group. Established in 2009, I came to it a little late but, apparently, just in time to vote on their yearly, postseason awards.
The Alliance is divided into chapters, by team allegiance of the bloggers, and given that the Red Sox are in the America League, our chapter (including me) only voted on American League awards. There is a list of the awards and when the winners will be announced here. Today the Boston Chapter has released their voting for the first award, The Connie Mack award for Manager of the Year, and this is how the Boston bloggers voted (totals are based on how many votes each manager received):
Terry Francona, Boston Red Sox – 12 points (including four first place votes)
Ron Washington, Texas Rangers – 6 points
Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay Rays – 5 points
Cito Gaston, Toronto Blue Jays – 4 points
Ron Gardenhire, Minnesota Twins – 3 points
My votes were for the three managers bolded, but in this order: Francona, Gaston, Washington.
A couple of notes about my voting: I genuinely think Tito deserves it. For him to bring the team as far as he did with the injuries thrown at him and having to use a lot more minor leaguers than was ever intended, says a lot about his abilities as a manager. I might disagree with some of his in-game decisions and some of his bullpen usage, but on the whole I don’t think you will find a better guy to manage a team and deal with all of the drama involved in doing so. The other note: Joe Girardi could manage The Bad News Bears to a World Series championship and I wouldn’t vote for him. That is all.
Remember, this result is just from the voting of the Boston Chapter of the BBA. The full voting for the Connie Mack Award will be announced on October 14th. It’ll be interesting to see the differences across the board.
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