“Four contenders for AL manager award ”
FAVORITES
Terry Francona, Red Sox: He deserves some overdue recognition for his managerial skills — both at handling personnel and running games. Barely a blip in this voting while winning 193 games his first two seasons with Red Sox teams regarded as deep in talent, he has a considerably more modest roster back at that same level…
CONTENDER
Joe Torre, Yankees: …So rallying for a Wild Card does not figure to impress voters, who have a hard time equating $200 million payrolls with managerial coups.
(Emphasis is mine.) They still don’t get it, do they? You’re probably sick of seeing this by now:
No. / Team / Payroll
1. New York Yankees $ 189,639,045
2. Boston Red Sox $ 143,026,214
So Joe Torre’s bringing back up a bunch of underachievers with the highest payroll in baseball is not worthy while managing the team who already is equipped the best collection of hitters and pitchers in baseball with the second highest payroll is? I don’t understand why people still think the Yankees are the selfish money-grabbing team they were in the early 2000s, while the Red Sox are still a small market team looking to make it “big time”. The Yanks are defenitely not a small market team, but the Red Sox sure aren’t either. And that people still think this long after the Sox became a big market team (which was… kind of always) is pitiful. What happened to that good ol’ New York media bias? See: 2006 MVP voting.
Everybody likes an underdog, even if they’re not.
The Baseball Exchange 