As the season draws to a close, YW has assembled a series of expert panels to debate baseball’s postseason honors. This week, we tackle the Manager of the Year awards.

Joe Morgan

I think Frank Robinson should be the Manager of the Year. Frank Robinson has been a key part of the Nationals’ success this year. When the season began, no one had any idea how good the Nationals could be. But Frank Robinson had faith in his team, and his players, and it was his belief in his team that had them in first place for most of the season. He was able to draw out career years from players like John Patterson and closer Chad Cordero, and got great hitting and defense from everyone he played. And even when players were struggling – like Cristian Guzman or Vinny Castilla – Frank stuck with them, knowing that they were a big part of the team’s success. It was only bad luck and injuries that kept the Nationals from seeing the post-season in their first ever season in the Major Leagues. Not making the playoffs should not take away from the great things Frank Robinson did with the Nationals this year, though.

Jim Kelly

Playing in Buffalo, I became quite a fan of the Cleveland Indians. So forgive me if I’m biased, but I was thrilled that they managed to put it together this year. Some people may look at the Indians’ season and see a team that squandered a sure thing when they didn’t make the playoffs. That’s fair enough; the bad taste of defeat takes a long time to wash out of your mouth. (Ask Scott Norwood! LOL.)

People may call Eric Wedge a choker, but they’re wrong. The fact is that the Indians were indisputably the best team in the league in September, and to call them out for losing three games when it mattered most is to ignore the previous 159. When people think of the Buffalo Bills in the 1990’s, they don’t dwell on those four Super Bowls. They focus on those four straight years at the top of the AFC. 15 years from now, nobody’s going to remember who won the World Series. They’re going to remember how the Indians hung in there until the very end.

Patrick Byrne

When the Oakland A’s let Ken Macha walk, they immediately realized their error. The man who engendered the greatest Bay Area turnaround since Steve Jobs could not be replaced at any cost; in a late-night meeting aboard the decommissioned USS Iowa, Billy Beane and his cadres devised a secret battle plan for retaining Macha’s services. No one knows for sure why this meeting needed to be held on a mothballed warship, but you can fill in the blanks, I’m sure.

There are some people in this business who would love to know the whereabouts of the entire Oakland front office at any given time. There is a reason why they all check into hotels on the road using fake names; the next time the A’s are on a road trip, you would be advised to call around to the Red Roof Inns and Super 8s in town and ask for, let’s say, “Michael Lewis,” and see who turns up. Whoever he is, he won’t be boning Tabitha Soren at the time.

At any rate, the following morning, a heavily encrypted email appeared on Macha’s BlackBerry. “My bad,” it simply read.

And with those two simple words, all the enmity between Macha and Beane subsided. The black helicopters stopped patrolling the skies over Beane’s compound; the mysterious crackle in the background of Macha’s phone calls was silenced. In the end, Macha was willing to return to Oakland because Billy Beane proved that he shared Macha’s commitment to the greatest thing a baseball team – or a dot-com – can give its fans: great customer service.

With Macha on board, Oakland knows that it can continue to evolve as an organization to provide its users with the best baseball experience possible. Envisioneering championship paradigms well past the threshold of Web 3.0, Billy Beane has given Silicon Valley the biggest gift since free Wi-Fi.

Jay Mariotti

Say what you will about his tendency to feast on his toes with the reckless abandon of a man stranded on a deserted island. Say what you will about his peculiar strategies and alliegances – El Duque? Timo Perez? Bobby Jenks? Say what you will about his unorthodox Smallball tactics in a Bigball world. Believe me – I’ve said plenty this season about how awful Ozzie Guillen was down the stretch. And now it’s me clenching my teeth around a Size 8 while the ChiSox guzzle champagne.

1917 was a long time ago, just like that 15-game lead these scrappy Sox almost blew. Just a month ago, folks were lining up to tan Ozzie’s hide, including the seemingly unstoppable Cleveland Indians. And now, with last year’s improbable World Champions tasting bitter defeat in their own friendly confines and the World Series in the bag, 1917 is nothing more than a meaningless number. Because of Ozzie Guillen. Son of a homosexual child-molesting bitch.

Ronnie “Woo Woo” Wickers

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NEIFI PEREZ AND COREY PATTERSON BATTING LEADOFF! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! CARLOS ZAMBRANO THROWING 140-PITCH COMPLETE GAMES! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! THIRTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD ROOKIE CENTER FIELDERS! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DUSTY BAKER! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!