Manager of the Year Day

The BBWAA presents the Manager of the Year Award Tuesday night, and you can watch the reveal on MLB TV. The three finalists in the National League are Terry Collins, Joe Maddon, and Mike Matheny. Jeff Bannister, A.J. Hinch, and Paul Molitor look to take home the award in the American League. Maddon, Bannister, Hinch, and Molitor all took on new teams this year, Bannister and Molitor managing for the first time in the majors.

Often times the award goes to a manager whose team either blows away the rest of the league, or performs above pre-season expectations. Bannister, Hinch, and Molitor all fall into the latter category, and Maddon probably does as well. The Mets expected to win going into the regular season, although the pundits didn’t agree as much. The Cardinals were simply the best team in the majors during the regular season.

I would not vote for Collins first. The Mets success seemed to hinge more on front office moves at the trade deadline than Collins getting the most out of his players. That’s not a criticism of Collins; the fact that so many Mets players wanted to stay in New York at the trade deadline indicates that they want to play for the man.

There is a real strategy argument that can be made between Maddon and Matheny. Joe Maddon batted his pitcher eighth 140 times in 2015, Matheny never did (Collins used that strategy 25 times). Maddon constantly moved his players around the field trying to maximize production. Matheny tried to move Matt Carpenter around the lineup, only to find Carpenter didn’t respond well. Matheny got a lot out of a pitching staff where the best veteran pitchers spent a great deal of time on the disabled list, and one young one pitched through an injury. Toss a coin, but I think that the pre-season expectations of the Cubs, plus Maddon’s active strategy gives the award to him. I would vote Maddon, Matheny, Collins. There is no bad choice here.

The AL is tough call. The Rangers were devastated by injuries, but won the AL West. The Astros were a laughing stock two years ago, and led the AL West most of the season. I thought the Twins would be terrible going into 2015, and they played extremely well most of the year.

I like that Molitor used the pitcher batting eighth strategy five times. Two other AL managers used it once each. Hinch did a nice job of mixing his veterans and youngsters, and executed the pitch well and hit home run strategy well. Bannister got lucky that Prince Fielder could hit again. Texas was a little too aggressive stealing. While their SB% was above average, they led the league in getting picked off.

In thinking about it, I suspect Ned Yost really should be first. These three are very even, and I’d probably vote Hinch, Molitor, Bannister.

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