The voting members of the SB Nation's baseball blogs chose Lou Piniella as NL Manager of the Year last season, recognizing the then-second-year Chicago Cubs' skipper for having led his team to its second straight 1st place finish in the NL Central, with Charlie Manuel, whose Phillies had taken the East and would go on to win the World Series, and Fredi Gonzalez, whose Florida Marlins had overachieved impressively enough to earn the second-year manager three first-place votes, rounding out the top three. A little over a week later, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced that they'd reached the same conclusion, handing Lou Piniella his 3rd Manager of the Year award, (the other two with the Mariners), with Manuel and Gonzalez finishing second and third in their voting as well...
Piniella's Cubs were a huge disappointment in 2009, Charlie Manuel's Phillies repeated as NL East champs, and eventually went all the way to the World Series, but weren't as impressive in a less-competitive division which basically handed Philly the crown, and Fredi Gonzalez's Marlins finished strong and ended up second in the East but didn't turn quite as many heads as they played .500 ball the first half and never caught Philadelphia...or the Wild Card winning Rockies...So who did the SB Nation's Baseball blogs give the 2009 NL Manager of the Year Award to this time? Vote for your NL Manager of the year below and then see which skipper we selected after the JUMP...
(cont.)...
| 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 |
• Jim Tracy took over in Colorado with the Rockies off to an 18-28 start under Clint Hurdle and turned things around almost immediately, leading them to a 74-42 record for a franchise best 92 wins and a Wild Card birth in the postseason that marked the third visit to the playoffs in the team's 17-year history.
• Tony LaRussa's Cardinals took the NL Central by the widest margin of any of the '09 NL Division winners, and St. Louis was back in the postseason for the first time since they took the World Series just three years ago.
• Fredi Gonzalez once again got the most he could out of baseball smallest payroll, finishing second in the NL East, 6.0 games behind Philadelphia, and third in the Wild Card standings, 5.0 games behind Jim Tracy's Rockies. The Marlins' 9-20 May likely cost them the season, but Gonzalez rallied the Fish to a 41-31 second half, which was apparently enough to save the third-year manager's job.
?'s For The DC Faithful...
• Did anyone else deserve 1st place votes?
• What about what Joe Torre was able to do in LA with Manny suspended for an extended period?
• Have the Nationals named their new manager yet?
• We were told a decision would be made shortly after the World Series concluded? Will the Nationals make a splash in the morning papers now that the '09 season's officially over?
• Any chance the new Nationals' Skipper competes for the twenty-ten SBN NL Manager of the Year award?