Rocco Baldelli Wins Manager of the Year
Nov 12 2019 05:20 PM |
Seth Stohs
in Minnesota Twins
Image courtesy of Kim Klement, USA Today
A 23-win increase from 2018 to 2019 helped the Twins manager edge out Yankees Aaron Boone for the AL Manager of the Year.Baldelli and Boone each received 13 first-place votes, but Baldelli received 13 second-place votes to gain the advantage. Kevin Cash, whom Baldelli coached for as recently as the 2018 season, finished third place.
Baldelli is the fourth Twins manager to win this award. The others are Tom Kelly (1991), Ron Gardenhire (2010) and Paul Molitor (2017).
- Baldelli became the winningest first-year manager in Twins/Senators franchise history.
- He was also the seventh first-year manager in baseball history to reach 100-plus wins.
- The Twins’ 101 wins marked the second-most in Minnesota history, behind only the 1965 American League Champions, who went 102-60.
- Baldelli joined Billy Martin (1969), Bill Rigney (1970) and Ron Gardenhire (2002) as the fourth Minnesota skipper to lead the team to the postseason in his first season at the helm.
According to the Star-Tribune's Phil Miller, Baldelli, 38, becomes the youngest person to win the Manager of the Year award.
More response to the Baldelli award:
Mike Schilt of the St. Louis Cardinals was named the 2019 National League Manager of the Year, edging out Brewers manager Craig Counsell.
- MN_ExPat likes this
31 Comments
Good for Rocco! Maybe the Twins can use that as an additional selling point for free agents this offseason
Good for him!
Wonderful News.
Hey Rocco,
Go for back to back!!!
Congrats! And I agree with the second place vote for sure. All those injuries....
A rookie manager who walked into a clubhouse that didn't know him, beset by injuries to players, a patch-work pitching staff yet 101 wins.
Yeah, he done good.
101 Thumbs Up
Way to go Rocco!
Good for Baldelli! Let's hope the season after is much different than the year after Molitor won his award.
Great News! Way to go Rocco!
Please row the boat to a WS championship next year. Sorry! Wrong team. Please navigate the ship to a WS victory in 2020.
eh, the team will probably regress to 97 wins, and make it out of the first round of the playoffs.
So much for sustainable success!
Solid choice.
I won't argue with Rocco getting the nod but it's always a disappointment to see the managers of teams like the A's and Rays get so little love for what they've done while spending so little.
While ownership and the front office dictate spending and roster spaces respectively, the manager is the guy on the field who has to make it work and Cash and Melvin did a phenomenal job with not a lot of resources.
While it would have irritated the **** out of me to see Boone get the award, I would have tipped my cap to Cash or Melvin had they won.
It may have irritated me also had Boone won the award just because I absolutely hate the Yankees so much. But on the flip side, he did a magnificent job holding that team together with all those injuries all season, not to mention they didn't even make a big deadline splash like they usually do. Boone to me actually did a great job, whereas many of the Yankee managers of the past didn't impress me that much just because they had everything, but I really thought Boone did a great job holding that ship together with all those injuries all year.
Hate to throw water on this but ....
Ron Gardenhire MOY 2010
2011 63-99
Paul Molitor MOY 2017
2018 78-84 fired
Evidently Twins MOYs develop amnesia during the off season.
Congratulations on the award but I don't think Baldelli managed the Twins into 307 home runs.
I think Rawlings in Costa Rica had more to do with it.
I was going to say the opposite thinking Cash did so much with so much less, but you're right, as much as I dislike the Yankees, that record with all those injuries was pretty impressive.
How on god's green earth did Francona make it on the ballot? I like Tito, but his season didn't exactly scream "Manager of the Year"
I don't know if the Twins were really "beset by injuries", at least not relative to other clubs -- and not before many of those 101 wins had already been tallied. And the pitching staff wasn't that patchwork -- after all, we got 146 starts out of our original starting 5 (and most of the remaining 16 starts were again late in the season). By comparison, Cleveland only got 97 starts from their original starting 5 in 2019.
He did seem to do well with the pen, which is a big consideration for a modern manager, although some of the pen's "patchwork" nature was by design (i.e. Littell on the Rochester shuttle) and something that most modern managers deal with. But to his credit, he definitely got good, and sometimes unexpected, performance levels out of the group.
Well, Francona finished a clear 6th in this balloting, and his team finished 6th in the AL. Seems appropriate? And Cleveland probably faced greater injury/patchwork challenges than the Twins.
Boone did a fine job but it's a hell of a lot easier to "patch together" a season when your front office goes out and picks up a player like Encarnacion because of said injuries.
Congratulations to Rocco. Think how good he will be if he ever learns how to handle his bullpen.
Did they pick up anyone of note besides Encarnacion? And Encarnacion isn't versatile at all, so it's going to take some skill to deploy him properly.