GM of the Year

In 1996 we began to award the owner who ran their team the best.  You might think, well Team A won the championship, didn't that owner run his team the best?  Not necessarily, though unfortunately I think that is the thinking for most owners when they are voting.  Here's the definition of the award:

CFCL General Manager of the Year

In 1996, we decided to vote on which of the CFCL managers had done the best job of running his team during the season. Criteria for this award includes trades and free agent acquisitions, as well as intelligent movement of players between the Active and Reserve Rosters. Unofficially, no owner who allows his pitchers to pitch in Coors Field should be eligible for this award. More often than not, the owner who finishes in first place will probably win this award, however, it is the quality of the owner's management, not the performance of his players that should determine the winner of the GM of the Year award.

Clearly this was written before the Rockies installed their humidor.  If the logic is "Well, that owner won the league so he should be GM of the year" then we don't need this award.  We already have this award - it's called the Copperfield Trophy.  This award is meant to recognize the owner that did the best job of managing his team throughout the season, not who had the best draft or walked in with the best players.

The GM of the Year could easily be an owner whose team finished sixth, but during the season the owner picked up some talent on waiver wires, made astute trades to put them in position to compete next  year, freed up some salary to give them flexibility at next year's draft, etc.

The main problem in trying to vote for this award the way it's supposed to be voted on is that during the course of a loooong season, we are focused on our teams, making our moves, living our lives, working, family time, etc.  It is very difficult to also monitor what another owner does when the moves are more subtle.  If one owner makes a ton of trades to acquire massive young, inexpensive talent - that's not too hard to identify.  But the intelligent waiver claim, the subtle trade, the constant bi-weekly tweaking of the active roster is less easy to identify - especially if that owner's team isn't all that talented to begin with.  But that owner could have worked his ass of to have his team finish 6th when had he not worked as hard as he did, the team easily could have finished last.

In fact, in the seventeen years the award has been handed out, only two and a half times has the award gone to an owner who did not also win the league.  In 2008 Bob Boryca won the GM award despite the Stones (Steve Olson) winning the league.  The following year in 2009 Matt Bentel won the GM award when the Kenndoza Line (Kenn Ruby) won the title over Bentel in a tie-breaker.  And last year (this is the "half" I referred to) Mike Coulter (who won the CFCL title) and Rich Bentel (Dem Rebels) tied in the voting for GM of the Year.  Here are all the past winner:

1996		Rich Bentel		Dem Rebels
1997		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
1998		David Holian		David's Ruffins
1999		Kelly Barone		Six Packs
2000		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
2001		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
2002		Eric Lamb John Lemon		Eric's Lambchops
2003		Eric Lamb John Lemon		Eric's Lambchops
2004		Steve Olson		Steve's Stones
2005		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
2006		David Holian		David's Ruffins
2007		Kenn Ruby		Kenndoza Line
2008		Bob Boryca		Mo's Red Hots

 2009    Matt Bentel        DoorMatts
 2010    David Holian     David's Ruffins
 2011    David Holian     David's Ruffins
 2012   Mike Coulter      Candy Colored Clowns
             Rich Bentel        Dem Rebels