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2010 Baseball Bloggers Alliance Announces Connie Mack Award Winners

Posted by on 17 October 2010, 1:39 am

Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers and Bud Black of the San Diego Padres were named winners of the Connie Mack Award by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, noting them as the best managers in their respective leagues for 2010.

Washington, who weathered a drug controversy in spring training, led Texas to their fifth divisional title since 1994 and their first since 1999. While the voting was based on his regular season accomplishments, Washington also guided his team to their first ever postseason series victory when they eliminated the Tampa Bay Rays in five games in the American League Divisional Series.

Washington received ten first place votes in route to accumulating 74 total points. He edged out Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, who received 67 points.

In the National League, Black’s guidance of a Padres team almost universally expected to finish last to first place most of the summer helped him edge Dusty Baker of the Cincinnati Reds by the slimmest of margins. The fact that the Padres fell just short of the playoffs while the Reds won the NL Central helped lead to the tight race. Black garnered nine first place selections and 53 total points to Baker’s seven first place nods and 51 total points.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League

Ron Washington, Texas (10) 74
Ron Gardenhire, Minnesota (7) 67
Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay (4) 35
Terry Francona, Boston (3) 20
Cito Gaston, Toronto 9
Buck Showalter, Baltimore 9
Joe Girardi, New York 2

National League

Bud Black, San Diego (9) 53
Dusty Baker, Cincinnati (7) 51
Bobby Cox, Atlanta (2) 33
Bruce Bochy, San Francisco (3) 29
Charlie Manuel, Philadelphia (1) 27
Brad Mills, Houston 3
Mike Quade, Chicago 2

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 224 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.  Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and tabulated on a 5-3-1 point scale for first, second and third.

This is an official press release from the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.

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Think You Got Problems? Top Three Biggest Losers In MLB

Posted by on 16 August 2010, 3:21 pm

The 2010 MLB season is in the home stretch, as contending teams battle for a coveted playoff spot and the possibility of going to the World Series.

It would be impossible to name the fate of teams still in the hunt. There is a lot of baseball to be played and anything can happen.

That doesn’t mean that, for a few teams, the 2010 season isn’t already in the toilet. Here, in order from bad to worst, are baseball ‘s top three biggest losers:

3) BALTIMORE ORIOLES

Here it is, plain and simple: the Baltimore Orioles should be better than 41-77 and 31.5 games out of first place in the AL East. Blaming failures on location is not going to fly, because the O’s are at the bottom of all 30 MLB teams.

Just look at the Rays, who have far less money, history, and fans than the O’s. Who would rather call dumpy Tropicana Field a home dome, instead of gorgeous Camden Yards? The Rays would happily switch stadiums with the O’s at a moment’s notice.

Where are all these superhero prospects the Orioles supposedly have? I have heard about the depth of the O’s farm system for at least four seasons, but pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg was on the Nationals the last time I checked.

The Orioles’ core of Nick Markakis, Adam Jones, and Brian Roberts is a solid group of talent. The pitching—not so much. O’s fans are waiting for their young pitchers to debut and claim that, in time, the O’s will win again. Guess the plan of embarrassing themselves in the meantime is working out better than expected.

There is light at the end of this tunnel and it started the day Buck Showalter was hired as the team’s skipper. Maybe owner Peter Angelos is finally listening, because hiring Showalter gives fans a reason to cheer again.

Though Showalter has been on the job for only a few weeks, Baltimore has already shown a huge improvement. Sorry to say O’s fans, but it may be next year before the team gets back to the “The Oriole Way” again.

2) NEW YORK METS

Coming in a close second and, with no surprise, is the New York Mets. The Mets have owned a spot on the “Biggest Losers” list since 2007, as the drama is never-ending in Queens.

The three problems with the Amazin’s are as follows: Continue reading ‘Think You Got Problems? Top Three Biggest Losers In MLB’ »

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