Someone gave Rocco Baldelli a vote for AL Manager of the Year

This week awards are being handed out across MLB as we take one last look back at last season before trekking into the Winter Meetings and the chaos of free agency. While Juan Soto rumors gently hum in the background, hardware for Rookie of the Year, MVP, and Cy Young will be handed out and final voting tallies will be revealed.

We've already had a few surprises, as Paul Skenes beat out Jackson Merrill for NL Rookie of the Year, and Twins fans were forced A Clockwork Orange style to watch former prospect Luis Gil win AL Rookie of the Year for the Yankees.

Another surprise happened when it came to AL Manager of the Year. It's not that the winner was controversial -- although the case fo A.J. Hinch seemed like he should have finished higher than he did -- rather who else showed up on the final list.

Despite not being a finalist for the award, Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli somehow secured a vote.

Someone gave Rocco Baldelli a third-place vote for AL Manager of the Year

Cleveland Guardians manager Steven Vogt very deservedly won the award in his first year as manager, as the job he did is pretty hard to argue against. Six spots behind him, though, is Rocco Baldelli who was the man in the dugout for the team that collapsed in historic fashion down the stretch of the season.

The Twins went from having a near-90 percent chance of making the playoffs to finishing the year in fourth place and below their expected win total. Despite this, Baldelli was given a third-place vote and ended up taking a point away from one of the Top 4 finishers.

It's easy to troll this given how the Twins' season ended, but it's also a reminder to look back at how good the team was before the collapse started in mid-August. For most of the summer Minnesota was looking like one of the best teams in the league and had one of the hottest offenses in baseball.

Carlos Correa dunked on his doubters so bad that he won an award for how good he was hitting, while Jose Miranda went on a historic hitting streak. Joe Ryan turned into an ace for the Twins, Griffin Jax was arguably the best reliever in baseball for a stretch, and Brock Stewart wasn't far behind him in that race.

Things were going so well that the Twins started August just a few games behind Cleveland for first place and was within striking distance of the best record in baseball. All of that came apart at the seams, though, and Minnesota crashed out well short of the finish line.

How the season ended is understandably coloring how everyone sees the season, but lest we forget Rocco helped manage the team out of a 7-13 start by getting the team on a 12-game winning streak. At the very least the Rally Sausage should have gotten some votes, but the job Baldelli did before the meltdown shouldn't be forgotten simply because of a disastrous finish that was partially out of his control.

More Minnesota Twins news and rumors