What About Bob?
Whether Arizona locks up the division, or even the wildcard, Bob Melvin is a near lock for National League Manager of the Year(MotY). A more interesting question is whether he deserves it or not, but first let's support the notion the hardware is his.
First, your team doesnt have to have the best record, or even make the playoffs, to win the MotY. Tony Pena won in 2003 with Kansas City, after missing the postseason, as did Nathanial Showalter the following year with Texas. In 2006, Joe Girardi proved not even a winning record is required. Baseball writers, especially recently, appear to be weighing underlying considerations more heavily than in the past.
Like how well you've fared against preseason expectations. Has your team raised eyebrows with their performance and by how much? Not internal expectations, or those of a few sabermetricians - but the expecations of sportswriters and the general public. Another consideration is whether a manager has overcome debilitating in season obstacles, like injuries or unusual off field distractions.
With that in mind, let's look at Melvin's competition. Tony LaRussa has dealt with the most jarring off field issues, as well as the loss of Chris Carpenter, and may indeed be the league's best manager. But he's won the award several times and his Card's really havent exceeded preseason expectations - not his fault, being defending World Champs and all - they just havent. And other NL contenders are rife with injured aces (Pedro, Unit, Schmidt, Sheets - do we even mention Prior and Wood anymore?).
The Mets, Phils, Cubs and Padres all expected to do well this year back in March - even Ned Yost's Brewers were a sexier preseason pick than the Diamondbacks. Arizona was a consensus middle of the division selection. Yet, with four weeks remaining, no NL team has more wins. And it's not just that. It's the way they're winning.
They've won starting half a dozen first or second year players, who for the most part, escaped national radar (see Joe Girardi, above). They've won despite the absence of even a remotely 'superstar' position player. Melvin's unremarkable bench leads all MLB in pinch hit home runs. Most eye opening is the inexplicably huge gap between Arizona's actual W/L record and the "Expected" W/L (derived from actual runs scored and yielded).
While this provokes lusty disagreement as to whether the gap is primarily due to strategy or luck, there's a growing perception that Melvin has taken a not terribly good team and helped mold it into a pesky, solid bunch a year or two before its time. No one in the NL has more wins. No one. Steering an unusually young team that wasnt supposed to be that good and leading the league in wins? Joe Girardi didnt do that. No other manager has done that. Not this year. Not in the National League.
I had the D'Backs pegged for 79-80 wins, and that was without any Pygmalion win theorem; just what pops out of my empty little head in the form of analysis.
The Manager of the Year award has become more what the writers think SHOULD have happened with a team, but didn't. The Marlins were supposed to lose 100 games, won 78, so Joe Girardi is labeled a "good" manager. Parity and luck with rookies and pickups aren't taken into account. If the writers simply look at the jobs the managers have done this season when voting, there's only one choice and that's Tony La Russa.
Melvin deserved a break with the D'Backs after how he was screwed in Seattle, so it may be some form of justice if he wins it this year.
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That stuff about how can the D'Backs be winning when they are so outscored is overblown. The differential is largely due to the blowouts, like the 13-0 beat down the Giants laid on them the last time they were in SF. I hope not to see anything like that next week.
ByrnesBlogger1
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"The differential is largely due to the blowouts"
This is true of all teams. One run and close games, by definition, have little bearing on teams' run differentials. Blowouts sway the run diff quite a bit. At least according to...uh..Pygmalion :-)
What's so unusual about the Dbacks is that they play amazingly well in close ballgames (MLB best), yet they lose two thirds of their blowouts (5 runs or more). The former is a normally reliable (not absolute) indicator of a good ballcllub. The latter is a nearly absolute hallmark of a second division club. You just dont see teams 15 games over .500 in September who get kicked around twice as often as they do the kicking. It's an extremely unusual, razor thin, recipe for success.
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Ah Pygmalion. I still fondly remember him as the opening act for Murray Head in the summer of '85.
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Given what the team have done this year there's no doubt that he should be manager of the year.The fact that he didn't get the best from his players in previous years leads me to think that there is an element of luck involved, but I'd rather have a lucky manager etc...
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