Let me preface this by saying that Buck Showalter will and and should not get the Manager of the Year award in MLB. A guy that coached for two months has no business collecting such a high-profile honor, and Showalter would probably be the first one to tell you that. If anything, giving the award to a guy that only coached for one third of the season would be disrespectful to the game. Having said that, in the hearts and minds of Birdland I think that Buck Showalter is the Manager of the Year. In fact, he’s probably the Manager of the Century! Let’s not forget that in the beginning of the season people were sending out amber alerts for the Oriole offense. The O’s were getting by with three hits and one run per game. How many games were there this year where the O’s would put across a run on a solo homer or perhaps a walk and an RBI early in the ballgame, only to have the other team put up three in the end to beat them? Granted the Orioles had injuries out the wazoo back then, but the fact remains that there was a total lack of clutch hitting on the roster from top to bottom. On the other side of the coin, Oriole pitchers started off the season pitching fairly well in my opinion. They were a bit predictable at times, however they were keeping the Orioles in games and putting them in positions to win (the starting pitching that is). After the ball got rolling, Oriole starters could see that they weren’t getting the run support that they should be, and they started feeling like they had to be perfect. How many Kevin Millwood fastballs got hamered out of the ballpark? How many Brad Bergesen two-seamers ended up being doubles? Ultimately this team, that was certainly plagued at the time by injuries, lacked the confidence it needed to compete. This was never more evident than in Nolan Reimold’s case, as he was sent down to the minors and didn’t return until September call-ups. Buck Showalter changed all of that. Literally from the first day that he arrived on the scene, this team seemingly had a different outlook. There’s no doubt that the Buck-O’s were helped out by the return of players such as Brian Roberts, Felix Pie, and Michael Gonzalez. However in general, the team appeared to have a bit more confidence as they played through games. The fact is that what Showalter did was nothing short of magical. Down the stretch under Showalter, this team won 65% of their games. The team that could have given the 1962 Mets a run for their money in terms of futility didn’t even lose 100 games. By the time Showalter came into the picture, wins and losses were almost an afterthought. It was more about how the Orioles looked in winning or losing those games. The games that they won to that point were generally ugly affairs; the Orioles would kind of grind out the wins and hold on at the end. (Effectively, you could argue that the opposition ran out of at-bats.) However once Buck showed up, the O’s started winning games with some passion. With each batter that stepped into the box, you had the feel that the Orioles had a chance to make something happen. And that’s what Orioles Magic is all about. So while Buck Showalter is not a candidate for Manager of the Year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him perhaps get one vote just out of respect for the job that he did. Coaching in any sport is as much about motivation and drive as it is about X’s and O’s (O’s, Stroh’s, and Natty Boh’s hon!). Buck had the knowledge of the game as much as did Dave Trembley and Juan Samuel. However Showalter also had the knowledge of how to motivate the players as opposed to the approach taken under the previous managers. One thing that also works to Showalter’s advantage is that he spent so much time with ESPN and undoubtably had to know the Orioles along with every other team in the league to a tee. So when he took over the O’s he had done his homework on them, along with their opponents. Next year will certainly bring some changes in that there’ll be a few new players along with much of the same core of talent that we’ve seen for the past few years. Each mix of guys is different in terms of how they need to be “coached-up,” so it’ll be interesting to see how Showalter has to adjust his approach to obtain those same results. With all of that said, if you take that 65% win total number and project it onto a 162-game schedule, that comes out to between 98 and 99 wins. That’s playoff baseball.
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