One baseball writer is going off the grid after producing a ballot that looked like it was straight out of a Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley fight.
San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler won NL Manager of the Year for 2021 after earning 28 out of 30 first-place votes. It was almost a no-brainer after the Giants won an MLB-best 107 games and their first division title since 2012.
Somebody forget to tell Mitch Stacy of The Associated Press. Not only did Stacy not have Kapler in first place (giving the vote instead to former St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Shildt) — it turns out that he did not even have Kapler in his top three at all. Stacy instead chose Milwaukee’s Craig Counsell and Atlanta’s Brian Snitker to round out his picks. For some reference, Kapler finished no worse than second on any other ballot.
After getting some presumed backlash for his ballot, Stacy set his Twitter account to “private,” which means that only confirmed followers and see or respond to his tweets. You can see for yourself the setting on Stacy’s page.
Manager of the Year is typically based on the regular season, which explains why Kapler was higher on every other ballot than Snitker, whose team won the World Series. That makes Stacy’s vote even more head-scratching since no candidate he picked even came close to Kapler’s 107 wins. Perhaps Stacy, who covers the Cincinnati Reds, voted based on seeing Shildt and Counsell more often in the NL Central division.
In any event, voters will often explain a pick that goes against the grain. But it looks like we will have to wait for the explanation Stacy gives, if any at all.
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