Siberian Baseball

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The best team to not win a damn thing

Try as I might, it's been pretty difficult to ignore the Cubs' most recent post-season belly flop as the hardware is passed out this fall.

Even with the team e-mailing me updates of sales on MLB.com and other chatter, it was impossible to miss e-mails about Geovany Soto winning Rookie of the Year and Lou Piniella taking home the manager of the year honors.

Great news for a team that took a hefty payroll and plenty of natural talent and turned it into another lifeless post-season.

Not that I think that either guy wouldn't trade their hardware in for the World Series trophy, but it's tough to get excited for this.

Joe Maddon won the AL manager of the year, which makes sense, but I guess I'm old school in thinking Charlie Manuel probably should have won for the NL. It's not like the Phillies were a lock to win the title and then they went on to, you know, win the title.

We'll dive into the hot stove in short order - waiting to see what happens after Friday.

(Image from: MLBlogs.com)

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2 Comments:

  • I'm pretty sure all votes for these awards have to be handed in prior to the start of the postseason so that they're strictly regular season awards. Hence, you often see the managers and players on World Series winning teams lose out in the individual awards if they "overachieved" in the postseason relative to their regular season performance.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At Thursday, November 13, 2008 10:23:00 AM  

  • True - that's how the voting is set, but it still seems a little awkward to hand over the trophy to someone who managed a team with that much talent.

    Again, Maddon was a solid choice over Tito Francona, etc., but anyone who saw the Chicago roster coming out of spring training could have guessed they'd be there at the end of the year.

    Milwaukee would have been a good choice if they didn't fire their manager down the stretch and even Joe Torre in LA was more impressive on paper (thought he could thank the addition of Manny and getting some healthy players in time for September).

    We need to make this a mathematical award like the triple crown - a ratio of wins to payroll and maybe a strength of schedule thrown in for good measure.

    By Blogger Matt G, At Thursday, November 13, 2008 10:28:00 AM  

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