Scioscia, Tracy named Managers of the Year

Today the Baseball Writers Association of America handed out their Manager of the Year awards to Mike Scioscia in the AL and Jim Tracy in the NL. Tracy received 29 of 32 first-place votes after taking over a last-place Rockies team from Clint Hurdle in mid-May and managing them to the Wild Card spot with a 74-42 record. Scioscia was first on 15 ballots, second on 10 ballots, and received one third-place vote after leading the Angels to 90-plus wins and the AL West title for the fifth time in the last six seasons despite Nick Adenhart’s tragic death in April. Scioscia previously won the award in the Angels’ championship 2002 season, while Tracy finished second in 2001, fourth in 2002, and third in 2004 as Dodgers manager. Also of note is that Ron Gardenhire finished second for the fifth time in eight years as Twins manager. Apparently the voters look at Minnesota’s success in the AL Central and assume that he must have done a good job, but then look at the mediocre win totals in what has typically been a bad division and conclude that it probably wasn’t the best job. I’d agree. Of all the mainstream awards, Manager of the Year is the one I have the most trouble caring about. The BBWAA tends to vote for managers of teams that exceed preseason expectations or managers of teams that narrowly make the playoffs, while often overlooking managers of teams that are simply really, really good. Perhaps not surprisingly of the dozen MoY winners during the previous six seasons, five (Eric Wedge, Tony Pena, Joe Girardi, Bob Melvin, Buck Showalter) were fired within two years of getting the award.