FanHouse

The yearly awards are beginning to trickle out, and thank God; too much more Alex Rodriguez speculation might make one's head explode. Instead, let's honor something less exhausting and far less quantifiable: manager performance!

In two unsurprising hauls, the Arizona Diamondbacks' Bob Melvin in the NL, and the Cleveland Indians' Eric Wedge in the AL, were awarded manager of the year for their performances throughout the 2007 season.

The two awards are not identical in their merit, though. Melvin's honor comes from guiding the Diamondbacks to a mathematically confounding season, in which a young Arizona team outperformed their Pythagorean record by 11 games. Because managerial acuity sits nicely in the sweet spot where performance is difficult to quantify, Melvin's is a pretty good place to look when explaining the D-Backs' discrepancy.

On the other hand, Wedge's performance (no doubt aided by his scruffy whaler's beard) was steadier, more constant, so much grease on the considerable Cleveland Indians' wheels. Both managers deserve their awards, and both of teams they manage are likely to keep them winners for years to come.