Manny Acta just might be your A.L. Mgr. of the Year

Someday someone in the baseball galaxy might ask me to vote for such things as the A.L. manager of the year.  While it hasn’t happened yet, I’m going to tell you what I think anyway.

Manny Acta deserves a look.

With Cleveland’s golden boy Grady Sizemore on the shelf basically the entire season, and the once underrated Shin-Soo Choo having a down year, the Indians went deep into the 2011 season with more then just a punchers chance of making the postseason.  In the end, they encountered too many injuries, their pitching fell apart, and let’s face it, the Detroit Tigers just went nuts.

Considering where things left off for the Indians in 2010, the teams’ manager, as tough as it may be, should be able to rest easy at night knowing he got his franchise going in the right direction.

Despite posting a reasonable 35-39 mark in the season’s second half last year, the Indians still finished 24 games under the .500 mark.  In the aftermath, the Indians finished dead last in attendance last year for American League teams, averaging a measly 19,000 fans per game.  This season, they have upped their amount of fans going through the gates, sitting 9th attendance wise in the A.L., and they have a good shot at finishing up at the .500 mark.

There is a very popular mid-day radio program in Detroit known as the Valenti and Foster show.  The show’s producer is a guy named Matt Dery who is a huge Cleveland Indians fan.  Before the start of the season, Mike Valenti and Terry Foster were making bets with Matt that Cleveland would finish in last place behind Kansas City, mocking him the entire time about how lousy the Indians were.  Wouldn’t you know it, come July 31st, the Indians were actually buyers at the trade-deadline.  And as it stands, they will most certainly finish ahead of the Royals and the Twins, maybe even the White Sox.

But as I mentioned before, the injuries kept piling up, and the smoke and mirrors in the pitching staff began to subside.  Plus it should be noted, Detroit’s deadline deals panned out leaps and bounds ahead of the moves Cleveland made.  But I don’t believe that is something you can pin completely on the shoulders of Acta.

Now, there have already been rumblings, especially in Detroit, that Jim Leyland might be establishing himself for the A.L. manager of the year award.  Perhaps this is warranted – the Tigers are coasting into the postseason staking the claim as the hottest team in baseball.  But I attest that it should be mostly the Tigers’ GM Dave Dombrowski taking most of the credit.  The acquisitions of Doug Fister, Delmon Young and Wilson Betemit have all yielded far more magic then anyone possibly could’ve imagined.  The team Leyland had pre-July, which on paper looked relatively strong, struggled mightily to take control of a weak A.L. Central division up until these moves were made.

I would of course listen to arguments made for a couple other guys.  Joe Maddon has his Rays in the hunt, and this is a guy who lost Carl Crawford, Joaquin Benoit and Rafael Soriano.  Despite his teams’ deductions they still have a shot at the postseason as they continue to grind in the daunting A.L. East.  But after you take out the departed Matt Garza, they still have the second best starting rotation in the A.L.  They have a good team.  It shouldn’t shock anyone where they’re at.

And you could probably make a case for Ron Washington.  He has his Rangers in the driver’s seat to win the A.L. West.  But this is a team that went to the World Series last year – they’re real deep.  Yeah they lost Cliff Lee, but they added Adrian Beltre, and returned one of baseball‘s best closers from a year ago.

It’s possible that I am just making a fool out of myself.  Of course.  Wouldn’t be the first time.  But with the ammo Manny Acta went into battle with this year, I would say what Cleveland did in 2011 was pretty remarkable.  This award should be given to the Indians’ skipper.  There, I said it.