This week, we'll be posting the results for each of Major League Baseball's regular season awards, as voted upon by the SB Nation baseball bloggers. Today's announcement is for the 2009 Manager of the Year balloting.
Each SB Nation blog was given two ballots to fill out, voting for awards in the particular league their team belongs to. Those with only one primary writer, such as BYB, were allowed to invite another team-specific blogger to submit the other ballot. Voting with me for the American League awards was Kurt Mensching from Mack Avenue Tigers.
You can see how each of the SB Nation baseball bloggers voted at their respective sites, as we'll all be sharing our ballots. The remaining SBN Baseball Awards will be announced in succession throughout the week. Rookie of the Year winners will be posted tomorrow, with Cy Young winners to follow on Wednesday, and we'll conclude with the winners of the Most Valuable Player awards on Thursday.
Here are the 2009 vote totals for American League Manager of the Year:
| Rk | Manager | Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mike Scioscia | Los Angeles Angels | 9 | 8 | 3 | 72 |
| 2 | Ron Gardenhire | Minnesota Twins | 9 | 5 | 1 | 61 |
| 3 | Don Wakamatsu | Seattle Mariners | 6 | 3 | 8 | 47 |
| 4 | Joe Girardi | New York Yankees | 2 | 4 | 2 | 24 |
| 5 | Ron Washington | Texas Rangers | 1 | 4 | 4 | 21 |
| 6 | Terry Francona | Boston Red Sox | 1 | 1 | 3 | 11 |
| 7 | Jim Leyland | Detroit Tigers | - | 2 | 4 | 10 |
| 8 | Joe Maddon | Tampa Bay Rays | - | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 9 | Ozzie Guillen | Chicago White Sox | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| 10 | Trey Hillman | Kansas City Royals | - | - | 1 | 1 |
On my ballot, Don Wakamatsu got the first-place vote, with Mike Scioscia second, and Jim Leyland third. Scioscia deserved strong consideration, given all that his team had to go through this year, but ultimately, I felt no other manager got better results from a less talented roster (though they had great talent on defense) than Wakamatsu did. And I'm not sure anyone had to deal with more underperformers (especially in his lineup) than Leyland.
How would you have voted?
The National League ballot is after the jump:
| Rk | Manager | Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jim Tracy | Colorado Rockies | 24 | 1 | 2 | 125 |
| 2 | Tony LaRussa | St. Louis Cardinals | 3 | 7 | 10 | 46 |
| 3 | Fredi Gonzalez | Florida Marlins | 2 | 6 | 5 | 33 |
| 4 | Joe Torre | Los Angeles Dodgers | - | 9 | 2 | 29 |
| 5 | Charlie Manuel | Philadelphia Phillies | - | 3 | 5 | 14 |
| 6 | Bruce Bochy | San Francisco Giants | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| 7 | Bobby Cox | Atlanta Braves | - | 1 | 4 | 7 |
| 8 | Bud Black | San Diego Padres | - | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 9 | John Russell | Pittsburgh Pirates | - | 1 | - | 3 |