As you know, Boston Red Thoughts is a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA), the coalition of baseball bloggers started in 2009 to foster communication and collaboration between bloggers across baseball.

Recently, BBA Founder Daniel Shoptaw divided each team into its own “chapter”, with an accompanying President. I am proud to say I have been appointed the inaugural President of the Boston Chapter, and, as part of my duties, I help to coordinate the chapter’s voting for Postseason Awards.

As the Boston Red Sox are an AL team, we only vote on that 1/2 of the league, and we have chose run it pretty much like other awards organizations do (every chapter can vote in the way they see fit). Each vote getter is assigned a number value, based on where they are in the voting, and whomever gets the most votes, gets our nod for that award.

The 1st award up for 2010 is the Connie Mack award, given to the Best Manager in the AL for the 2010 campaign.

As a group, this is how our voting shakes out:

12 points Terry Francona, Boston Red Sox

6 points Ron Washington, Texas Rangers

5 points Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay Rays

4 points Cito Gaston, Toronto Blue Jays

3 points Ron Gardenhire, Minnesota Twins

Terry Francona received the most 1st place votes with 4, with Joe Maddon receiving 1. Both Ron Washington and Joe Maddon received 2 2nd place votes for their work during the 2010 campaign, with Ron Gardenhire also receiving 1 2nd place vote. Ron Washington received 2 3rd place votes, with Joe Maddon and Ron Gardenhire receiving 1 each…

This was pretty much how my personal voting shook out–and I know you are thinking that Tito Francona was an obvious choice, given the fact that I am a Sox fan, and write a Sox Blog. Actually, the big things that swayed by vote for Tito was the fact that, despite playing with a Triple A/Utility Player roster for a good portion of the season, and the endless injuries that we really dont need to rehash again, The Boston Red Sox won 89 games. And in just about any other division, that would have been good enough to get them to the postseason. It would have been very easy to give up and let the Sox descend into 3rd or 4th place–but Tito tried to win every day–and with the fact that the front office did little to help bolster the roster as the season progressed, I think Terry Francona did an excellent job.

Ron Washington and Joe Maddon also did a great job this year keeping their squad focused and balanced, and it paid off: They are currently battling each other for the chance to take on the Skanks in the ALCS, as their series is tied 2-2.

Why no Joe Girardi? Well, I can only speak for myself, but there are quite a few reason, and they fact that I hate the Skanks is about 6th on the list. I personally dont think he is that good of a manager; I think he makes bad decisions, and burns through a bullpen worse than Joe Torre used to. But the biggest thing is that when you have an unlimited budget, and can acquire pretty much whomever you want, how is that a managerial challenge?

Coming up: The Boston Chapter will announce its selection for the Willie Mays Award later this week, and we will find out what the BBA as a whole has to say with regard to their selections…