Skippa

With the award season sliding up on us, you'd think that this blog would be about the Cy Young winners, or maybe even Rookie of the Year honors. But I'd like to take this time to talk about the people who don't usually get much love in the baseball world; the managers. Too often managers get the pink slip for the failures of the team, (see Clint Hurdle earlier this year for the Rockies). And then once in a while managers make a splash when they have unexpected success quickly, and profit from it monetarily (see Jim Tracy, NL Manager of the Year winner for, yes, the Rockies). But usually skippers go about there business working year-round to build and coach a better team than the one they had the previous year. For the now reigning AL Manager of the year Mike Scioscia, this is a feat unto itself.
Reason being, is that Mr. Scioscia continues year after year to put out a fantastic product. Now, I will lay down some minor criticism of Mike Scioscia right off the bat to get them out of the way. First, he coaches a Los Angeles team, so he has the benefit of a big budget. Fine, so do a lot of other teams that don't have continued success. Second, he coaches in the AL West which for some utterly stupid reason has FOUR TEAMS! I hate, with a searing passion, the fact that the AL has one less team than the NL. Does this make sense to anyone?! But I digress. The Angels still have to play 162 games, they just happen to play division rivals less, and have one less potential playoff-stealing opponent to worry about, but that is not Mike Scioscia doing, or fault.
Now back to the good stuff about Mike Scioscia, which is, well a lot. For starters, let's just point out that he has had only two losing seasons out of ten years whilst the manager of the Angels. Oh, and he won a championship with them in 2002. And he's led the team to records of 95 wins or better four times in that same span. And does he have an easy time managing these teams? How about no, you crazy Dutch bastard! He's in a major market which translates heavily into job pressure. He has had to deal with disastrous free-agent signings like Gary Matthews Jr. and the tragic death of a dynamic young up-and-coming pitcher Nick Adenhart. Many lesser managers would have been cooked. But Scioscia remains cool under all that pressure and that is why I salute him so proudly.
Like Tony LaRussa in the NL, Mike Scioscia is a master of actually managing a game. Sure he has abundant OFs, but knowing how to give each player a purposeful role and bringing out their best is something few accomplish. Personally, if Mike Scioscia decided to coach my team, I'd be thrilled because I know he's a no-nonsense, intelligent man who stays away from the spotlight by avoiding press conference tirades or arguing publicly with players. Mike Scioscia, you are the man, and I'm glad you had collected your second Manager of the Year award. Bravo!