Managing Expectations

Bob Melvin's Oakland A's came out of the pits of baseball obscurity this season, won 94 games, and upended the slug-it-all Texas Rangers on the last day of the regular season to win the American League West.

Twenty-eight hundred miles east of Oakland, Buck Showlater's Baltimore Orioles began the 2012 campaign, just like the A's, with low expectations – from others, not themselves – entering the season and, like the Athletics, produced similar winning results.

The Orioles won 93 games and battled the New York Yankees through 162 games for the America League East crown, ultimately losing out by a single game.

Just a few miles down the Beltway from Baltimore, Davey Johnson led his Nationals ballclub to the best record in baseball (98 wins) and a National League East title. His team, armed with Natitude, took the defending World Series champions St. Louis Cardinals to a decisive game 5 in the NL Division Series.

For Johnson and the Nationals, their rise to prominence was a year ahead of schedule, according many prognosticators.

Tonight, as part of awards week, the Baseball Writers Association of American (BBWA) will select its AL and NL managers of the year. Melvin and Showalter are candidates for the AL honor and Johnson is among the three nominees in the National League.  

Bruce Bochy, who led the San Francisco Giants to a World Series victory over the Detroit Tigers is also a candidate for the honor in the NL. Tigers skipper Jim Leyland is not up for the award in the AL.

Keep in mind, these nominations were made by the writer's at the conclusion of the regular season. Ballots were cast long before Bochy's team celebrated on the field at Comerica Park a four-game sweep of Leyland's club.

Where am I going with all this?

I want to know just what exactly does it take to win manager of the year in Major League Baseball or coach of the year in other sports?

It seems all too often this award is given to the manager, or coach, whose team rises above expectations, wins more games than we thought they ever possibly could, and creates buzz around the ball club. You know, the kind of buzz that brings 15,000 fans more than usual to the park who, for some strange reason, begin twirling towels all around their heads until their arms nearly fly off and hit the beer man.

Is that the way it should be? I don't think so, either.

But how do you asses this award? Do you look at each and every game and critically examine managerial moves – platooning, bullpen, pinch hitting, etc. –through each game situation?

Forget that? Who has the time?

Oh, I know the writers who make up the BBWA see a lot of games, but do they see enough to make a determination on each manager's skills?

And if they do, man they need some time off.

Now, with all that said, I think baseball gets it right more often that the other sports. Leyland won the award in 1992 with a solid Pirates team and Joe Torre won the AL Manager of the Year in 1998 with that loaded Yankees team that won 114 games.

Ok, let's skip out of the ballpark for second. Phil Jackson… how many NBA titles has that guy won?

11.

How many NBA Coach of the Year awards has he won?

One! Just one.

Now you can say all you want that Phil had players like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and Steve Blake (just checking to see if you're still with me through all this lightly-researched rambling) on his team.

But tell me, how many titles did those Lakers and Bulls teams win without Jackson? You got it, bro. Zero.

When the BBWA makes known its selection for manager of the year tonight at 6 p.m. Eastern, I expect the decisions to go along the "hey, their teams did better than we expected" lines of thinking.

And with that, watch for Davey Johnson and… hmmmmm, this one's close, but I'll take Showalter over Melvin.