WASHINGTON, D.C. – Every year around this time, Major League Baseball starts doling out their Pat-Me-On-The-Back Awards. Most are simply popularity contests for a variety of categories and grossly misrepresent the season in terms of the category’s actual best choice. (I’ll reserve comment on R.A. Dickey and the Cy Young Award). Anyway, things like the Golden Glove and Silver Slugger are seemingly meaningless. In fact, the only category MLB always gets right is Manager of the Year. Until this year…
Davey Johnson……. HOW THE FROG can you give Davey frogging Johnson the Manager of the Year Award. If you can’t win with a starting rotation of Strasburg, Gonzales & Zimmerman (that’s not a law firm), then you are probably addicted to heroin. Tom Hanks could coach that squad to a World Series. Kevin Costner would have won the World Series if he were at the helm. Throw in names like Zimmerman (the other one), Bryce Harper and Ian Desmond? Fugeeetttaabbouutttiit! The kid from Rookie of the Year could coach that team to a World Series. They really had Angels In The Outfield and they still couldn’t win a playoff series.
And why didn’t they win even a series?! Because Davey Johnson and that kooky owner down there in D.C. decided to bench one of the top 5 pitchers in the game. Automatic disqualification for Manager of the Year.
If you know you want to limit his innings, then start him in June or July. Send his butt on a vacation to extended spring training where he can rest his arm while paying for the company of professional women. Then call him up in June and guess what??? He finishes the season around 140 innings and he can start throughout the playoffs. If he had hit 160 innings after pitching game one of the World Series, would you tell him he isn’t pitching game 4-7? How much calculus did that take?
Dusty Baker finished second? Where did that come from? Are we supposed to be rewarding managing playoff collapses repeatedly? If so, Dusty is your man… just ask the Giants and Cubs fan base. Dusty Baker is the girl you settle for when the bar lights go on. Dusty Baker is your annoying neighbor that shows up to your parties uninvited. Dusty Baker still listens to WHAM. Dusty Baker is just good enough to get you there and not good enough to finish the deal. Dusty Baker is NOT a manager of the year runner up. He is a Mis-Manager of the Year runner up!
Bruce Bochy is the OBVIOUS Manager of the Year. The guy actually had to make some decisions and some tough ones at that. Oh yeah, and he won the World Series. Many forget that Bochy had to adjust to losing his resident hulk Melky Cabrera. Or how about the fact that he put an NL CY Young winner in the pen? And how bout when does Buster Posey get rest at first base? Bruce Bochy is Manager of the Year without, question.
In the Amercan League things played out as they should have. Bob Melvin of JG Clancy’s A’s won. Baltimore Buck [Showalter] came in a close second. This, I agree with. What I don’t agree with is that four imbeciles voted for Joe Girardi. How can you possibly vote for Joe Girardi?! What did he do this year? He pulled a Dusty Baker! He sat A-Rod…. Boy, did that take guts. The only thing Rodriguez was connecting with was a chippie in the stands. But I guess just goes to show the power of the New York press. The Montreal Expos beat writers would not have been so biased.
TRICKEY DICKEY…. Evidently if you are 38 and your arm is only a touch stronger than Short Matt’s and you can lob a knuckler….You can win a Cy Young! Congrats to Rumpelstiltskin Adolphus Dickey on achieving what Carl Pavano never accomplished.
Cookie’s Corner with more Carl Pavano, tomorrow.
P.s… (See the comments under Angry Ward’s great piece on NY Busts, to get the Pavano thing).
- Heute back ich, morgen brau ich,
- Übermorgen hol ich mir der Königin ihr Kind;
- Ach, wie gut, dass niemand weiß,
- dass ich Rumpelstilzchen heiß!
