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.

2013 Team Awards: Cleveland Indians

In order to review the 2013 season, the crackpot staff of Off Base is handing out awards to each Major League team. Please send us $19.95 for the shipping and handling of your team's Hello Kitty stickers awards. Here are the Most Valuable Player, Least Valuable Player, Cy Young, Cy Yuck, Rookie of the Year and Reliever of the Year for the Indians. 

*Guidelines, prices and participation may vary by author*

MVP: Jason Kipnis
As a long time fan of Kipnis (say three-ish years), I can't say enough good things about him. So why even bother starting. Terry Francona was a very close second for me. After two World Series Championships and one infamous Popeyes chicken and beer 7-20 September collapse, Francona spent one year killing it as analyst for ESPN before joining the Indians as manager for 2013. The Indians went from 68-94 in 2012 to 92-70 in 2013, including a brief appearance in the one game playoff. While I believe a bad manager makes a bigger difference to a team than a good manager, Francona has to deserve some credit for the turnaround. He's one of the more progressive thinkers as far as managers go and one of the handful of difference makers in the skipper ranks. While I'm back-patting, let's give Francona and his staff credit for polishing a turd into Scott Kazmir 2.0 (two point oh?).

LVP: Lonnie Chisenhall
Chisenhall, like Kipnis, debuted for the Indians in 2011. Chisenhall, like Kipnis, was a top prospect for the Indians in 2011. In fact, Chisenhall was the Indians' top prospect in 2011 according to Baseball America, followed by Alex White and then Kipnis. Chisenhall, unlike Kipnis, has yet to live up to his lofty former ranking. With a 0.5 fWAR, Chisenhall wasn't the worst player on the Indians. This is a team that gave Mark Reynolds 384 plate appearances and over 300 innings at both first base and third base. Reynolds can barely field a clean inning at DH. But Chisenhall hit a paltry .225/.270/.398 in 308 plate appearance and even got shipped to Triple-A for almost a month in mid-May. He just turned 25 in October so I guess there's still time for him to be less-not-so-good.

Cy Young: Justin Masterson
As much fun as it would be to write about Ubaldo Jiminez's big bounce back season or Danny Salazar's electric rookie debut or even challenge myself to write something nice about Scott Kazmir, Masterson was the ace of the staff and turned in a fine performance. His 3.45 ERA and 3.35 FIP were improvements over his 2012 numbers (4.93 and 4.16) but it was his strikeout rate that jumped drastically from 6.94 K/9 in 2012 to 9.09 K/9 in 2013. I doubt the strikeout rate is sustainable but that's why I get fun nicknames like "Debbie Downer" and "Your beard makes you look homeless."

Cy Yuck: Brett Myers
Yes, Chris Perez was awful. According to Fangraphs, Perez was worth -$4.7MM in 2013. Quite the bargain for only $7.3MM. But Perez at least stretched his negative value over 54.0 innings. Brett Myers consolidated his terribleness to three starts and one long relief appearance in April. In those 21.1 innings, Myers gave up 29 hits, five walks, 19 earned runs and 10 home runs. Myers got $7MM of his own which I assume he's already used on Kleenex and therapy. His 2014 club option is probably in jeopardy.

ROY: Yan Gomes
There's no way he can show up on ROY ballots, right? He's not ROY eligible but that hasn't stopped voters before.

ROY: Danny Salazar
Salazar dazzled in his debut striking out seven Blue Jays in 6.0 innings. Then he struck out 10 Tigers in 7.2 innings. He finished with an 11.25 K/9 and 3.16 FIP in 52.0 innings. So, there's some reason for excitement.

Reliever of the Year: Cody Allen
In 70.1 innings, the 24-year-old posted a 2.43 ERA and 2.99 FIP with an 11.26 K/9. With Chris Perez and Vinnie Pestano giving the back of the bullpen a flavorful smell of eggs cooked in hot garbage, Allen is a name for fantasy players to file away. Steamer is already projecting 28 saves for 2014.

Terry Francona Ready to Bring Bubble Gum Wads back to Dugouts.

Once a manager, always a manager I suppose. News broke earlier today that Terry Francona was among two acknowledged candidates for the open managerial position in Cleveland. I can only assume that they are waiting to publicly announce my candidacy once they have realized that my ability to chew and maintain substantial amounts of bubble gum far surpasses that of Tito.

That's right Terry, I said I can chew more gum than you. What of it?

BBA AL Connie Mack Award Ballot

Baseball's award season is upon us and we finally have a vote that counts for something this year. We're proud members of the Baseball Blogger Alliance and they've been kind enough to give us ballots. The only thing the BBWAA ever gave us was the stink eye when we saw them on the subway that one time. Today we'll be unveiling our AL Connie Mack Ballot for manager of the year.

1. Terry Francona
Despite Boston missing the playoffs, I'm giving Tito the slight nod over Ron Washington because he somehow managed the Red Sox to an 89-73 record in baseball's toughest division without core players. The Sox lost their entire outfield, their MVP second baseman, Mike Lowell turned 127, Big Papi had his usual godawful start and Jonathan Papelbon melted down. Paps led the AL in blown saves with 8 and, if that wasn't enough, Daniel Bard was tied for second with 7. I don't know what Tito was doing in Boston this year and even if I found out it was voodoo, I'd still give him the credit for it.

2. Ron Washington
Washington's Rangers managed to unseat the Angels from atop the AL West. He got an MVP season out of Josh Hamilton, a big rebound year from Vlad Guerrero, a break out performance from CJ Wilson and barely had to worry about bullpen management as Neftali Feliz set the rookie saves record. All of the stars aligned perfectly for him. It also didn't hurt that Seattle was terrible, Oakland was just a .500 club and the Angels started Brandon Wood.

3. Ron Gardenhire
It infuriates me to see Gardy go do something like sac bunt in the first inning but he constantly has the Twins in the playoffs. This year he did so despite losing Justin Morneau half way through an MVP caliber season and Joe Nathan for the season. He even got 221 solid innings out of Carl Pavano without him turning back into a pumpkin. I suspect that might have been voodoo too though. Gardy won the Central by 6 games over the White Sox after it looked like it could be a close race.