Managers Joe Girardi, formerly of the NL Florida Marlins and Jim Leyland of the AL Pennant winning Detroit Tigers were awarded Manager of the Year honors after balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Girardi, who was fired by the Marlins on October 3, presumably over a rift with the club owner, guided a rebuilding team of 22 rookies and a young, inexperienced pitching staff behind ace lefthander Dontrelle Willis who had a sub-par 12-12 season (following his 2005 banner record of 22-12, which saw his ERA balloon from 2.62 to 3.87) to a run for the wildcard berth and 78-84 finish in the NL East.

Sports Illustrated’s AP report says about Girardi;

Sometime soon, Joe Girardi will go looking for another job in a major league dugout. And when he does, he’ll have a Manager of the Year award at the top of his resume.

A rookie skipper himself, Girardi beat out Willie Randolph of the New York Mets by a comfortable margin to become the first Manager of the Year with a losing record.

“I don’t know if vindication is a good word, just because as a manager, you want to manage,” Girardi said.

“It’s nice that people who watch the game every day understood what we accomplished,” Girardi said, adding he wasn’t particularly surprised to win. “We had a lot of good things happen.”

Leyland, who managed the Marlins to their only World Championship in 1997 after first winning the Wildcard berth over the San Francisco Giants and then the NL pennant by defeating the Atlanta Braves as well as having taken the Pittsburgh Pirates to 3 consecutive National League Championship Series in the 1990, 1991, and 1992 as well as winning Manager of the Year honors in 1990 and 1992, replaced Alan Trammell who had guided the Tigers to 3 poor finishes from 2003-2005.

The same Sports Illustrated AP report says of Leyland;

Leyland turned around the long-moribund Tigers in his first year with the team, leading them to the World Series and their first winning season since 1993. He received 19 of 28 first-place votes and 118 points to top Minnesota’s Ron Gardenhire, who was listed first on nine ballots and totaled 93 points.

“I knew that we had something here. I thought it would take longer than it did. This team started believing,” Leyland said. “We had good players going into spring training, but we didn’t have a very good team. We made ourselves a good team and that’s something I’m very proud of.”

The 61-year-old Leyland appears firmly entrenched in Motown after winning his third Manager of the Year award — and first in the AL.

Leyland returned to the dugout last season following a six-year hiatus, taking over a foundering Tigers team that went 71-91 in 2005. Two seasons before that, Detroit lost an embarrassing 119 games — an AL record.

But with a deft touch and demanding approach, the cigarette-puffing Leyland led the surprising Tigers to a terrific start. They struggled mightily down the stretch and squandered the AL Central title, losing out to Gardenhire’s Twins on the final day of the regular season.

Still, Detroit captured the wild card for its first postseason berth in 19 years, then upset the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs before sweeping Oakland in the AL championship series.

Finally, the run ended. Playing in the World Series for the first time since 1984, the Tigers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in five games.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 16th, 2006 at 9:45 am and is filed under All Time Baseball Highlights, Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary, All Time Team Highlights, Post-Season Awards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.