Commentary on the Manager of the Year awards

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 I have already written on the Rookie of the Year award, so now I can tell you if the experts were right or not on the Manager of the Year awards.

The AL Manager of the Year was Brandon Hyde, who was the manager of Baltimore's Orioles. The team won 101 games this season, best in the American League. They were rotten in 2021, losing 110 games before turning around in 2022 to win 83 games, and the manager hit his apogee this year. This is a fair vote and I can respect it. I personally may have chosen Bruce Bochy, who turned the Rangers around from losing 102 games in 2021 and 94 in '22, but the experts were fine on this one. 

Unfortunately, I can't say they did a good job on the NL Manager of the Year.

Somehow, the voters went with 43 year old Skip Schumaker of the Miami Marlins. Granted, this was his first year as a major league manager and he was over .500, but for goodness sake, he was only 84-78. Even though they lost 93 games last year and 95 the year before, nobody who wins 84 games should be the Manager of the Year unless they did something absolutely insane. Of the finalists for the award, the decision should have been Craig Counsell, who managed the Brewers' questionable hitting to 92 wins. I may have said Brian Snitker, but how hard can it be to manage a team with an all-around .500 slugging percentage to 104 wins? Only 104? I could have managed a team that talented to at least 116 wins.

Well, there you have it. The pros got one right and the other way wrong. Well, everybody makes mistakes (except for me).

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