Quick thoughts: 2010 Managers of the Year

Ron Gardenhire won the AL Manager of the Year Award pretty easily, a well-deserved accolade for a guy who just simply wins with whatever he's given. In the NL, however, Bud Black edged out Dusty Baker by a single point. That's crazy.

Voters list three managers on their ballots, with the first-place vote worth five points, second worth three and third worth one. I wonder if the voters think about the point tabulation or just consider the order of the names. Obviously, a first-place vote indicates who that writer thinks deserves the award. But how much thought goes into second vs. third place? I'm curious because had one of the two voters who listed Dusty Baker third decided to put him second, the award would belong to Cincinnati's skipper.

As for the order of finish, it's pretty much how I would've listed them:

Black first, because he guided the Padres to the last day of the season before they were eliminated and no one predicted San Diego to contend for anything this year except the best packages for which to trade Adrian Gonzalez and Heath Bell.

Baker second, because the Reds were a surprise division winner. But he had more to work with than did Black, plus a weaker intradivision schedule against which to manage.

Bruce Bochy third, one first-place vote. Sure, the Giants won the division, but they didn't come out of nowhere to do it. Brian Sabean deserves Executive of the Year for bringing in the pieces, both last offseason (Aubrey Huff) and in-season (Pat Burrell, Cody Ross).

Bobby Cox fourth, one first-place vote. He didn't get the "lifetime achievement"/farewell support some may have expected in finishing this far back. He nearly had the Braves winning the East again until injuries (particularly to Chipper Jones) caught up to them in September.

Charlie Manuel fifth, one first-place vote. I saw some questioning why there wasn't more support for Manuel for Philly winning another division title despite injuries to just about every position player at some point in the season. I suppose it's a fair question, but I'd counter by saying that the Phillies were still more loaded than any team in the NL, so the injuries didn't hurt as much. Plus, they rarely had multiple studs out at the same time. Now, had they still won the division without adding Roy Oswalt, Manuel would've had a stronger case.

Brad Mills sixth, with an inexplicable second-place vote. I don't know how the manager of a 76-86 team gets a vote ahead of either Black or Baker, which he must have to be placed second on one ballot. Hey, if you want to tip your hat to a guy and throw him a bone with a third-place vote, fine by me. But a second-place bone still has a little meat on it. Whatever, it might not be that big a deal. Or it may have cost Baker the award.

And one last tidbit about Black: He becomes just the second former pitcher to win Manager of the Year, and he had a much longer Major League career (398 games) than Tommy Lasorda (26 games) did.

Way to go, Marlins

Was there any surprise to the last three awards? No, not really.

American League Manager of the Year. Jim Leyland. Of course. He took a team that lost 119 games three years ago to the postseason. His was the best team in the American League. They made the playoffs, so we can overlook that slight slide at the end of the season that had them arrive there as Wild Card entrants rather than AL Central division winners.

Where would the Phillies have been had they hired Leyland before the 2005 season instead of Charlie Manuel? Philadelphia finished second in the two years under Manuel, compiling 88 and 85 wins and missing the Wild Card by no more than three games in either year. Considering the talent the Phillies already have, you'd have to think they'd have played postseason ball one of those years, if not both. But the Phillies cut Leyland out of consideration rather early, and he surfaced a year later in Detroit.

National League Manager of the Year. Joe Girardi. Everyone knew this was coming. When the Marlins fired Girardi right after the season, it was talked about as firing the NL Manager of the Year. In his first stint as skipper, Girardi took a rookie-laden squad from 20 games under .500 back to the break-even mark by Labor Day and even had his young Fish in the Wild Card hunt until mid-September. How can you overlook that? That the Marlins couldn't get along with Girardi and chose to fire him is the team's fault, and they'll have to live with that when next year's squad doesn't improve. We'll see what happens, but even if the Marlins can't reach 80 wins in 2007, I wouldn't lay the blame on new skipper Freddi Gonzalez.

That the Mets' Willie Randolph was second was also no surprise. Randolph didn't win the award for the same reason Joe Torre's only award came in 1998, when the Yankees established a new American League record with 114 wins (and Lou Pinella got it in 2001 when the Mariners broke that record). Like Torre in '98, Randolph had too many tools at his disposal. The Mets' payroll and their lineup of All-Stars essentially precluded Randolph from collecting the hardware, because he had so many resources. That the Mets demolished the National League and were the best team from start to finish wasn't enough. Had they won 100 -- actually, they probably would've needed to win 105 or 110 -- games, Randolph probably would've taken it. (More wins for the Mets likely would have also meant a better record against the Marlins than the 11-8 the Mets put together, which may have reduced Girardi's star some.)

American League Cy Young. Johan Santana. For the second time in his career, Santana won the award with 100 percent of the vote. Another unanimous winner in a year that wasn't quite as good as his first Cy Young campaign -- but that's splitting hairs. This time, too, his competition wasn't as strong. As best as I can tell after a quick look at the voting totals, Santana is the first pitcher to win each of his first two Cy Young Awards unanimously since the voting went to first-second-third in 1970, rather than just one vote for a pitcher.

Today, we'll get the most up-in-the-air award of the postseason -- or second-most, after NL Rookie of the Year. Will Albert Pujols retain the NL MVP, or will Ryan Howard come away with it? My guess is that the writers stick with Pujols, but I'm not so sure he should get it. Hopefully, I'll have time to break down some numbers before 2 p.m. If not, I'll look into the results after the announcement.

Postseason awards picks

In a few hours, we'll learn the first of this season's award winners, and since I've been lazy and couldn't come up with a real analysis, here's the quick version:

NL MVP
I think Barry Bonds will win, yet again. But I think it should be Adrian Beltre. The simple argument/formula is take the player away from his team, and where would they be? Yes, if you take Bonds off the Giants, they're not good at all. They might be lucky to win 75 games. But the same can be said of Beltre. In 2003, the Dodgers made an unexpected run at the postseason on the strength of their pitching. They couldn't hit for anything. They needed an offensive upgrade, and their only key offseason acquisition was Juan Encarnacion, until Milton Bradley came over at the end of spring training. But the key to the division title was Beltre, a young player whom the Dodgers expected to become a superstar at least three years ago. He's been drafted in so many fantasy leagues with those expectations and been dropped y Memorial Day every year. Not this time. Granted, fantasy is far from reality, but Beltre was the most valuable player this year. I'm convinced that if major league managers had some guts and pitched to him more, he wouldn't have such gaudy numbers. For one, he wouldn't have a .680 on base percentage. His numbers are tainted in so many ways.

NL Cy Young
For the most part, I'm not a fan of the guy, but how can Roger Clemens not win it? Randy Johnson just didn't have the won-loss record, Jason Schmidt faded over the season's final six weeks and Carl Pavano didn't do enough in the final stretch to seal the award. Clemens, on the other hand, looked like his classic, dominating self for much of the season and led the Astros to the postseason. But the best part, from my perspective, is that if he had remained with the Yankees, they almost certainly would have reached the World Series, probably even won it.

NL Rookie of the Year
This one seems like a two-horse race. Those who dig deeper argue for San Diego shortstop Khalil Greene, whose offensive numbers are solid, but far from spectacular. His defense, however, is stellar and he looks like a veteran already. The other half generally falls in the camp of Pirates outfielder Jason Bay, who has the flashier home run and power numbers that Greene lacks. Bay, however, doesn't have the advantage of playing on a contender and has less support overall in his lineup. My vote would be for Bay because he seemed, to me, like the most outstanding rookie; I think his offensive numbers were impressive enough to outrank Greene's defensive contributions, though there is something to be said for a complete, all-around player. I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here. End of story: I'm picking Bay, but I could see Greene getting it easily and I think it will be this year's closest award.

NL Manager of the Year
Bobby Cox. Perhaps for the first time since 1991, most pundits expected someone other than the Braves to win the NL East. I'm sure some of the Braves themselves thought so too. But after the games were played, the same team could be found atop the division. Really though, next year is the year for someone else.

AL MVP
This one will probably be close as well, coming down to Vladimir Guerrero, Gary Sheffield and Manny Ramirez. I'm going with Vlad. While Anaheim got a lot of headlines for all its offseason pickups, the strong-armed right fielder became the heart of the team and performed better than what was expected of him. He was arguably the only Angels pickup to do so. Bartolo Colon was dreadful for a good stretch and while Jose Guillen certainly showed he can hit, his end-of-season benching showed he's also, clearly, a head case. It was Guerrero who performed consistently throughout the season and who picked up the slack for the injured Garret Anderson and Troy Glaus. It's always tough with the Yankees, because when you apply the "if you take him out of the team's lineup" test, they usually have enough to compensate for the loss of any one player. Sheffield certainly did a lot for the Yanks, but even without him, they still had Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada. And for much of the season, their pitching wasn't as bad as it became in the postseason, so they had the arms to make up for a loss at the plate. As for Manny, he falls into the same predicament Sheffield's in: a lineup that's too good.

AL Cy Young
Curt Schilling will be second. Johan Santana had the better numbers overall, and this award is a bit more straightforward. It's not which pitcher was most valuable to his team, it's which pitcher was the best. I'm sure Schilling got the hardware he wanted anyway.

AL Rookie of the Year
I think it goes to Bobby Crosby. The A's let Miguel Tejada leave because they thought Crosby was ready to be a big-league shortstop. Turns out they knew what they were talking about. Whether or not that decision meant the difference between first place and second place is another matter. (I happen to think it wasn't; thinking Arthur Rhodes could be your closer was much worse.)

AL Manager of the Year
Buck Showalter. How good would the Yankees be next year if they traded Rodriguez this winter? Look at the history: the 2000 Mariners with A-Rod were 91-71 and won the wild card. In 2001 they went 116-46, setting the AL record for most wins in a season, and won the division. In 2003, the Rangers (with A-Rod) went 71-91. This year they wre 89-73 and in the AL West race until the final two weeks, even without anything resembling a competitive pitching rotation. Anyway, Showalter pulled off the managing feat of this millenium so far. And be sure to put those World Series bets down on the Rangers the year after Buck leaves. His previous two jobs ended in 1995 with the Yankees and in 2000 with the Diamondbacks.