BBA AL Connie Mack 2014

Once again, it's Baseball Bloggers Alliance award season! It's a lot like the BBWAA award season with different names because they get litigious with their free time. The fine staff here at Off Base will guide you through our ballots over the next few days. First up, the Connie Mack or how I learned to stop worrying about former players managing and love them bombing.

It appears there are two key ways to win the Connie Mack (cough*manageroftheyear*cough). You can manage a team that is expected to be terrible and then accidentally win 92 games and make the playoffs. Or you can manage a team that does well despite key losses and also make the playoffs. It's a good year to be Buck Showalter if you want a trophy.

1. Buck Showalter
Few had the Orioles flat out winning the AL East, let alone running away with it. The O's lost debatably talented Matt Weiters at catcher, stud youngster Manny Machado at third to injuries and Chris Davis to a suspension even though he had regressed all the way back to his Arlington days. Showalter led the team to a 96-66 record, good for second in the American League, and tied for second in baseball. I feel like it was done with a lot of smoke and mirrors as the Orioles starting staff had the 28th best FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) in MLB and the bullpen ranked 15th in FIP. Still, Zach Britton emerged as a lockdown closer. Nelson Cruz blasted 40 homers, Adam Jones did his thing and Steve Pearce was resurrected from the dead.

How much credit does Showalter deserve? Probably not much. But it was incredibly difficult trying to find a pic of him not pointing at something.

2. Terry Francona
It's not that I don't respect or care about these awards. But Manager of the Year is so hard to determine, I might have voted for Francona when he worked for ESPN one year. For example, when does a manager deserve credit for a player turning a corner? I don't know. But Corey Kluber led baseball pitchers in fWAR (Fangraphs wins above replacement) and Michael Brantley finished third in fWAR behind Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen.

3. Mike Scioscia
Leading the Angels to the best record in baseball is reason enough to make the AL ballot. But there's a little more to it in my eyes this year. The Angels scored the most runs in baseball. Scioscia actually managed the team he was given instead of forcing his small ball approach on a Jerry Dipoto built roster. It's an old dog learning new tricks scenario that must have made his skin crawl. And for that, he gets a third place vote from me. That said, Dipoto had to trade Ernesto Frieri away from the skipper to keep Frieri from serving up enough meatballs to cure world hunger.

LVM. Ron Washington
Washington resigned on Sept 5 citing personal reasons and later declared he was embarrassed after not being true to his wife of 42 years. Those are certainly his issues to deal with and I don't care to speculate any further. Finishing below the Astros in the AL West is plenty embarrassing enough.

Ron Washington Sank The Rangers' Battleship

It would be foolish of me to blame all of last nigh't Ranger meltdown on manager Ron Washington. But I'm a blogger and looking foolish has never stopped me from writing before, why start now? The Rangers and Josh Hamilton knocked Yankee ace CC Sabathia out of the game after hanging five runs on him in just four innings. C.J. Wilson cruised through seven innings allowing only a run. Wilson had thrown 98 pitches going into the 8th inning so Washington's decision to leave him in against Gardner was warranted.

Gardner hit an infield single aided by despite the uncalled for, yet highly dramatic, head first slide. Washington left Wilson in, sitting at 102 pitches, to face Derek Jeter. I didn't mind this move either for two reasons. 1) Jeter has not been good this year. 2) He's Jeter The Clutch (or some such nonsense) and he would have hit that clutch double off of God Himself (not that Washington would have called on the northpaw anyway). That's when Washington finally started firing shots that hit something.

B1 This was the first peg to hit the battleship. Washington turns to the bullpen and summons 74-year-old lefty Darren Oliver who had actually pitched well throughout the season. Much to Washington's chagrin, Oliver is actually anticlutch and walked Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira on 13 pitches.

B2 If he had just gone C1 and missed, he might not have sunk the Rangers' battleship. Washington replaces one Darren with the other and calls for O'Day. O'Day rewards his manager by giving up a screaming line drive hit and leaves the mound without breaking a sweat.

B3 Washington is on fire know and can see that battleship sinking. He goes back to his bullpen and pulls out some guy named Clay Rapada. I wouldn't know Clay Rapada if he walked into this basement wearing a Clay Rapada shirt. I would just figure he was delivering food I forgot I ordered from a restaurant I never heard of. Just like this post is getting away from me, so was the game from Washington. Cano singled and Washington would call for another reliever. Surely, this time it would be his best pitcher back there, Neftali Feliz. Right?

B4 Washington sank the Rangers' battleship. General Washington sent for Derek Holland. Holland gave up the tie-breaking single to Marcus Thames before mercifully ending the inning. The damage was done though. It still baffles me how, in this day and age of information, managers still refuse to use their best reliever in the highest leverage situations. Feliz hadn't pitched in almost a week, not using him anywhere in this inning was simply irresponsible.

The Rangers just went through the motions to end the game. Ian Kinsler drew a leadoff walk to start the Rangers' portion of the inning. But he was picked off by Kerry Wood, something Wood hadn't done in two years. After the walk, Wood and Mariano Rivera shut the Rangers down without a hitch.

Stay tuned to see if I can make the rest of my playoff recaps board game themed. With my attention span I'm guessing..ooh, a piece of candy.