Yeah, that's what happened on my laptop. The 2nd time - I hit the link and shut off my wifi before the sub. message came on. Success !Originally Posted by Jerjo
Yeah, that's what happened on my laptop. The 2nd time - I hit the link and shut off my wifi before the sub. message came on. Success !
if you really want to read it....here
The Managers of the Year for 2014: Baltimore's Buck Showalter in the American League, and Washington's Matt Williams in the National League.
(Just a reminder that the votes are cast before the start of the postseason; this is a regular-season reward.)
Showalter (96 wins) and Williams (94 wins) obviously did good work this season in leading their teams to division titles.
That said, I don't understand the Manager of the Year voting. I'm not saying that the results were wrong, or that the voting members of the BBWAA were clueless or did a bad job.
I just don't understand what the voting decisions are based on, and why one manager gets chosen one over another. The standards seem to float all over the place.
• Is the voting based on wins?
Well, yes and no. In the AL Showalter obviously won a lot of games, 96 ... but he didn't win as many as LA Angels manager Mike Scioscia, who led the majors with 98 victories. And in the AL West Scioscia's team overtook Oakland, an AL wild-card team that occupied first place for 116 days. Scioscia finished 2nd in the AL voting, but it wasn't close, with Showalter picking up 25 of the 30 first-place votes.
• Is a team's strength of schedule considered in the voting?
Evidently not. Or not much, anyway. Williams' Nationals were the only team in the NL East that had a winning record. Their strength of schedule ranked 24th among the 30 MLB teams. And we all know that San Francisco's Bruce Bochy is a Hall of Fame-caliber manager and has recently owned October, winning three World Series championships in the last five seasons.
None of which has a thing to do with the 2014 Manager of the Year voting. Bochy finished third in the NL voting this year, with he Giants winning an OK total of 88 games despite playing the easiest strength of schedule in MLB this season.
• Is the voting about saluting managers of underdog teams that exceeded expectations?
Apparently that's a factor. No current manager has been ridiculed and dismissed as an overmatched lightweight more than Kansas City's Ned Yost, but he finished third in the voting after the Royals qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 1985. The Royals finished second to Detroit in the AL Central, even though (A) the Tigers had a rookie manager in Brad Ausmus, who had never managed before; and (B) the Tigers had a more difficult strength of schedule than KC. But the Royals had the underdog tag and the Tigers were cast as the division's ruling power. So it was impossible, then, for Ausmus to receive a single Manager of the Year vote.
Ausmus in effect received no credit for finishing ahead of Yost in part because Yost is viewed (unfairly or not) as such a lightweight. But then the voters gave the same bumbling manager a pat on the back with a third-place status in the voting.
Question: If Yost was a better manager than Ausmus in 2014 -- which is what the voters are saying -- then why didn't the Royals win the division? Why did the Royals lose 13 of 19 to the Tigers this season?
And then there's Miami manager Mike Redmond, who finished 5th in the NL voting, just barely behind the Cardinals' Mike Matheny.
The Marlins won 77 games. Based on their run differential, they should have won 78 games according to the Pythogorean formula... which means the Marlins weren't overachievers. The Marlins are underdogs, yes. But they also went 24-32 down the stretch and won, well, you know ... 77 GAMES. I don't get it. The traditional underdog sticker doesn't fit.
Redmond actually received a first-place vote, and had more third-place votes than Matheny. (Matheny did, however, get more second-place votes, with five.)
Overall, Matheny finished only two points ahead of Redmond (18-16) in the final tabulations. I don't get it.
I'm not saying Redmond isn't an effective manager, or that Ausmus should have been considered as a top Manager of the Year candidate, or that Matheny should have won the NL award.
But the psychology in the voting, which is clearly tied to expectations, is fascinating to me.
Williams won the MoY primarily because the Nationals flopped in 2013 in Davey Johnson's final, burned-out season as manager there. That lowered expectations for '14. Williams did a nice job, but really this was about a very talented team naturally rising to its proper level in a weak division.
And then there's Pittsburgh's Clint Hurdle. He was the NL's Manager of the Year for 2013 after leading the Pirates to their first winning season and first postseason trip since 1992. The honor was well deserved. But jump ahead to 2014 ... Hurdle finished second in the voting, despite the fact that (A) they won six fewer games than they did last season; (B) finished in second place; (C) and finished in second place primarily because they had a seven-game losing streak in mid-August, and then got swept three games in St. Louis at the beginning of September.
Note to voters: the Pirates are good. Hurdle is a very good manager, and one of my personal favorites. And the cute, poor little underdog label fit in 2013. That precocious underdog narrative was playable in '13. But not in '14, not with the league's best position player and returning league MVP (Andrew McCutchen) in CF, and an emerging ace (Gerrit Cole) in the rotation. The Pirates were a legitimately good team in 2013 and '14 and should be viewed as such. As Hurdle would be the first to tell you, the Bucs aren't a charity case. They're legit.
Matheny and the Cardinals have prevailed over Hurdle and the Pirates for two consecutive seasons, winning two tight division races that went to the end.
For his part, Hurdle was honored with the Manager of the Year award in 2013, and a second-place round of applause in '14.
Matheny finished fourth in the voting both years.
Why?
Matheny finished sixth in the voting as a rookie manager in 2012 -- getting his team to the playoffs despite the pressure of succeeding the retired Tony La Russa, losing the retired pitching coach Dave Duncan, losing Albert Pujols to free agency, and losing ace Chris Carpenter to injury for most of the year.
Matheny didn't get a podium finish in 2013 after being deemed inferior to the great Fredi Gonzalez in Atlanta. (Gonzalez was third in the '13 voting.) And Matheny barely held off Redmond (and those 77 wins) to end up in fourth place again.
Preseason expectations go a long way into forming the basis and justification for some of the votes.
Again ... I'm not saying Matheny is the NL's best manager. I'm just pointing out how he's been an also-ran to Hurdle in the voting for two consecutive seasons, even though his team finished ahead of Hurdle's team in the standings in both years.
The Cardinals are supposed to win, right?
So when they do win ... the response is a shrug.
Didn't Matheny inherit a winner? ... shrug.
Matheny has won more games than any NL manager over the past three seasons ... shrug.
But even now the Pirates for some reason aren't supposed to win in the minds of the voters ... even though they've averaged 90 wins and gotten to the playoffs for two years in a row.
Scioscia can't win the 2014 AL Manager of the Year award despite winning more games than anyone because his owner spends a lot of money on free agents. Translation: Scioscia is supposed to win. Never mind his injury-torn rotation and the frequent bullpen makeovers that kept his team strong.
Same with Don Mattingly in the NL. The Dodgers' billionaire owners have given Mattingly the game's highest payroll to work with, so he should win a lot of games. Except that we know that big spending doesn't guarantee anything -- especially based on recent trends of parity and relative rise of small-market and medium-market teams. We know that a big payroll doesn't automatically translate that into victories ... but then we apparently ignore that when it comes time to vote.
Mattingly did end up at No. 2 in the voting in 2013. But the Dodgers erased a 9.5-game lead in '13, and Mattingly had the always popular comeback narrative working for him.
The difference: the Dodgers weren't supposed to win the division in 2013 but did win the division, and Mattingly was the runner-up to Hurdle in MOY voting. And after upending the defending World Series champion Giants in 2013, the Dodgers were supposed to win the division in 2014. And they did. So Mattingly finished sixth in the voting this time. Got that?
With the Manager of the Year award, it isn't where you finish that matters most.
It's where you were predicted to finish that counts.
Thanks for reading ...
— Bernie
i.ain't.dead.irock
Um....personnel?Question: If Yost was a better manager than Ausmus in 2014 -- which is what the voters are saying -- then why didn't the Royals win the division? Why did the Royals lose 13 of 19 to the Tigers this season?
Well, yeah. Exactly. You don't get points for doing what you're supposed to do. Manager of the Year is all about exceeding expectations, or completely dominating.The Cardinals are supposed to win, right?
So when they do win ... the response is a shrug.
Didn't Matheny inherit a winner? ... shrug.
Matheny has won more games than any NL manager over the past three seasons ... shrug.
Well, yeah. See comment above.Scioscia can't win the 2014 AL Manager of the Year award despite winning more games than anyone because his owner spends a lot of money on free agents. Translation: Scioscia is supposed to win. Never mind his injury-torn rotation and the frequent bullpen makeovers that kept his team strong.
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
"Manager of the year" doesn't mean much of anything. The award is given to the manager of the team that did the best in relation to how they were perceived at the start of the season (although sometimes success in wake of a rash of injuries to star players by a favorite can alter this formula some). The Orioles were predicted by most people to get wins in the mid-'80s. Instead they went out and won the division easily. If Baltimore had been expected to win the division by most writers, then Scioscia wins the award.
It's unclear *why* the manager would be the default reason why a team exceeds expectations, but the award is out there and they have to give it to somebody, so this is about as good a reason as any.
Uh, the division was also predicted to be competitive, which it wasn't. So, yes, they won. But other teams lost it, as well.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
"When Yes appeared on stage, it was like, the gods appearing from the heavens, deigning to play in front of the people."
In a related story:
Collins sticks his neck out with bold 2015 Mets playoff talk
“2015 is gonna be the year ... We’re gonna be in the mix to play in October.”
He means "play golf," right?
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Giancarlo Stanton on the verge of signing him for $325 Million dollars!
Be a loyal plastic robot for a world that doesn't care... Frank Zappa
By the Marlins??
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
INSANE!
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Haha! Just read on Twitter: "If the Marlins are giving Stanton $325M, the Angels are going to have to give Trout $400M and the Hawaiian Islands!"
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
AJ Burnett back to Pitt on a 1yr deal
BG
"When Yes appeared on stage, it was like, the gods appearing from the heavens, deigning to play in front of the people."
They're nuts. They did pick up a good player in Francisco Cervelli, if he can stay healthy.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Typical Met yappin'. Get rid of those A-Hole owners and get a real GM! By the way the manager sucks!
Be a loyal plastic robot for a world that doesn't care... Frank Zappa
Interesting to see that Mike Trout won the AL MVP unanimously after having what I consider to be his worst of his 3 full seasons. Batting average down 35 points and he led the league in strikeouts.
I think they gave it to him just to shut the whiners up who think he deserves it every year.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STUPID PEOPLE IN LARGE GROUPS!
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
Pot, kettle, etc.
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Hey all, in the spirit of last year I'm going to start a fresh 2015 baseball thread. Let the hot stove begin!
WANTED: Sig-worthy quote.
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