BBA AL Manager of the Year

As I mentioned yesterday, I have the honor of being included in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, a network of bloggers representing every team in the MLB and then some from all over the internet. We vote on all our respective league's awards, just as the writers covering teams do.

The first award coming up is the Manager of the Year. The last time I checked, Cleveland was in the AL, but I'm sure we all wish they were in the NL in a division with the Pirates, Nationals and the Mets. So yeah, I'm voting for the AL Manager of the year.

My first inclination is to give Eric Wedge a vote.

I'm kidding! Seriously... Wow.. Don't start groaning about how I suck.

Here's my official ballot. Yankee and Red Sox managers excluded, because, they are. Since we are an Indians blog and we are looking for a manager and we just fired ours and I'm really really sarcastic, it makes perfect sense to throw Tribe commentary in here. Enjoy.

3. Ron Washington, TEX

So you've got Ron Washington here and quite honestly, if he wins the award, I believe he should share it with Mike Maddux. The smartest move the guy did was to bring in the brother of the future hall of fame pitcher Greg Maddux to finally get some semblance of a rotation down in Texas.

Things really didn't change for the Rangers. Same group of names as the past few years with Scott Feldman moving from the bullpen. Tommy Hunter, Kevin Millwood, a crapp Vincente Padilla. It was all there and Maddux made it work.

But Washington still had a lot to deal with. It seems like their best player was always hurt with something new. Josh Hamitlon must have missed at least three periods of extended time. Ian Kinsler had his issues, Michael Young was out of the lineup at one point, and he had a rookie who wasn't supposed to hit a lick in at shortstop.

Give that man some credit for being the best team to not make the playoffs in the AL.

2. Ron Gardenhire, MIN

I resisted not giving my first place vote to Ron Gardenhire because the AL Central is complete garbage. But he deserves a vote for being awesome at his job and never getting the respect.

Especially this year more than any other. Okay so the Central sucks, but someone has to win it and give credit to the Twins for making the push they did despite missing Justin Morneau down the stretch. It wasn't just at team getting hot, it was a team that believed in whatever message was being fed to them.

Throwing guys like Anthony Swarzak and Jeff Manship (Manship? really? What is that?) into the rotation and still managing to win a division is good. I envy the Twins for they can find someone as good at his job as Ron Gardenhire is.

1. Don Wakatamsu, SEA

I have the utmost respect for anyone that can take an absolute ball of crap, spray paint it gold, and pass it off for a kings ransom.

The Mariners were probably not as crappy as we all thought they were. This was a team a few years removed from a decent run for a playoff spot that fell short. It was more of them playing below their talent level last year than it was reflective of how good they actually were.

But no one expected Don Wakamatsu to come in with a somewhat rebuilt team and do what they did. The Mariners were supposed to be Cleveland and Cleveland was supposed to be Seattle.

Is it any freakin' wonder they've got a former Indian rocking his ass off in center field?

I'll go back to it again. I screamed bloody murder when this team traded Franklin Gutierrez. All he needed was some confidence instilled in him. A guaranteed spot in the lineup and a consistent spot in the batting order day in and day out.

Wakamatsu should earn the award just based on the fact he used Gutierrez correctly. In other words, he used him period.

Anyway, enough about our misery. Wakamatsu is my pick. I keep using him as the comparison as to who the Indians should go out and get. Not someone exactly like Wakamatsu, but someone that can make an impact to the effect he did in Seattle. There is talent here, young talent, but talent that can do something.

Just come in and guide it in the right direction.

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So there's my top three. Joe Girardi does not get any sympathy for a 100 win team that shelled out nine-thousand million dollars in free agent acquisitions, even if he got A-Rod to be clutch. Eric Wedge in a way does deserve a vote. Just winning a single game with a bullpen of Vinnie Chulk, Luis Vizcaino, Greg Aquino, and Matt Herges deserves a ton of praise.

In honor of this occasion, I reach back into the vaults of this ridiculous blog and pull out one of the better images I've shared with the masses.

The Eric Wedge Gray Hair Watch... Now that he's fired and we'll probably be no more than a bench coach for whatever team he ends up with, his rate of hair going gray will no doubt slow down. But it was startling how fast his entire goatee went from original color, to a gray clump of sadness and aging.

And that picture was most recently in 2008.. One can only imagine how many white hairs he's sporting now that he's undergone a season even worse than 2008. In the most recent picture I can find from his last game, it looks as if his entire beard is turning gray. Ouch.