2013 BBA Awards: Connie Mack (Manager of the Year) and Willie Mays (Rookie of the Year)

It's awards season for baseball with the year coming to a close for 2013.  We're making our selections for Manager of the Year and Rookie of the Year.  To make these picks, we selected the top three for each league and then narrowed it down to one.  Onto the awards... (winners *)

AL Manager of the Year:
*Terry Francona
John Farrell
Bob Melvin

Melvin and Francona should get considerable thought for this award having taken teams that were afterthoughts and making them into playoff clubs.  The A's were supposed to finish behind both the Rangers and the Angels.  The Indians, meanwhile, were thought to be still in the middling stages of rebuilding.  However, Farrell taking the Red Sox from worst to first gets the nod here.  Looks like shedding Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett was a good idea after all.

NL Manager of the Year:
*Clint Hurdle
Don Mattingly
Dusty Baker

This was split amongst our team at BBall Junkies, with much consideration going to Mattingly for having a MASH unit of a team this year.  Matt Kemp, Hanley Ramirez, and Crawford were all out significant amounts of time this year.  Yet, still the Dodgers managed to turn their season around from a dismal start to make the playoffs.  Clint Hurdle is our choice here for doing what most Pittsburgh fans thought was impossible.  He erased the 20+ year streak of having a losing record, and they made the playoffs to boot.  He deserves a lot of credit for making the Pirates a winning franchise again.

AL Rookie of the Year
*Wil Myers
Chris Archer
Dan Straily

Archer and Straily had promising starts to their pitching careers this year.  However, Myers ran away with this award.  He played in a little more than half a season, and his full season stats would have projected out to a .293 average with 26 homers and nearly 105 RBI.  Those are great numbers for a rookie slugger.

NL Rookie of the Year
Yasiel Puig
Shelby Miller
*Jose Fernandez

Throughout most of the first half of the season, I would have said Puig would be a lock for the award.  The Dodgers were banged up, and he seemed to be carrying the team.  Well, he came back to Earth, and two pitchers emerged as consistent powerhouses throughout the 2013 campaign.  Shelby Miller finished with a 15-9 record, a 3.06 ERA, and 169 strikeouts.  In most years, that would be good enough to win it.  However, Fernandez dominated even more posting a 12-6 record, with a staggering 2.19 ERA (second to only Clayton Kershaw), and 187 strikeouts.  Not only should he win ROY, but he will no doubt garner some votes for Cy Young as well.