Manager of the Year Selections at Call to the Pen

The crew at Call to the Pen have announced their selections for Manager of the Year. Read about AL winner Joe Maddon here, and NL winner Kirk Gibson here.

Now, these are not the official Manager of the Year awards, but they’re pretty interesting just the same. Every writer for each of Fansided’s MLB websites was invited to vote, and we are a lot smarter than those guys at the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, so make sure you check out the article! In the coming days and weeks, we’ll be revealing the winners for Top Rookie, Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, and Best Relief Pitcher, so keep checking Puckett’s Pond and Call to the Pen for results.

AL sites voted for AL awards. I voted for Maddon for first place, Jim Leyland for second place, and Manny Acta for third. This is exactly the same way the overall vote turned out, which either means that I’m exactly as smart as all the other writers in this network, or that I don’t have any power of independent thought.

It’s difficult to tell what effect a manager has on a team. A winning team might be doing well because they have great players, or because they are well managed. But the fact that Maddon led his team back to the playoffs despite losing Carl Crawford, Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett, and Carlos Pena means that he is probably doing something right.

I picked Leyland for second place mostly out of respect for his several years of service with the Tigers. He seems to run a tight ship over there, and he is the face of that franchise’s reemergence as a contenter. Also, he led the team on a 46-24 run in the second half. Any time a manager can get an improved performance from the same group of players, that’s a good sign. Finally, I picked Acta for third place because the Indians exceeded expectations this year. I look forward to seeing what they do in the future.