The Steve Phillips Awards*

*The Steve Phillips Awards (patent pending) are a set of honors for the players, coaches and front office members who most exhibit stupid "skills" in baseball, which, more often than not, anachronistic baseball writers and analysts value highly.

Most Talented Dugout Puppet of the Year (or Manager of the Year)

How blasphemous of me to mock a manager's influence on a game. Well, I'm kinda of the opinion that the players do most of the baseball playing. Most. So, for this year's Most Talented Dugout Puppet, I have to go with Ron Gardenhire. His team had no business winning 70 games, let alone 88. Unfortunately, Ozzie Guillen managed the fuck out of Gardenhire in the play-in game. Guillen's pinch running of Brian Anderson completely changed the dynamic of the game. Did you see when he caught the final out? That pretty much won the game by itself. Ozzie Guillen is a brilliant mastermind. I mean Dewayne Wise is a much better hitter than Nick Swisher. Can you tell I'm being sarcastic?

Driven Cologne Clutch Performer of the Year

Stephen Drew (sort the clutch column on the right). Stephen Drew! He must have been eating Clutch-O's (patent also pending) for breakfast this season. More than any hitter in baseball, Drew increased from his average production in "clutch" situations. Move over Derek Jeter, here comes Stephen Drew. If Drew can be "clutch," I will forever and always believe in clutch hitting. I should change these to the Sarcasm Awards, but then I might get Bronze, or Best Live Action Short.

David Eckstein Memorial Gamer of the Year

Though technically David Eckstein should always win the award, I figure variety is best. As much as I'd like to give this awards to the entire Dodgers team, I suppose I should choose one player. Jeff Francouoeuoueuoer is a good choice, since he was one of the least valuable players in baseball, but still gamed out 653 plate appearances. The problem is he is too "talented." So, I'll go with Khalil Greene. He's untalented and white. Alas, I wish he was 5'3" and had a beard, but his incredibly awful year hitting and, to some degree, fielding is enough. He went out there for 105 games and played his ass off to no avail. Now, that's what I call a gamer.

Executive of the Year

The winner of this award is whoever can explain to me how you can boil and executive's abilities down to one year. Everyone talks about Ned Colletti and Andrew Friedman. Well, Friedman's work was all done in the last 5-6 years trading for and drafting all of his players. Ned Colletti helped his team win this year, but he also screwed them over in the future. Then there's Billy Beane, who's A's played like ass this season, but he took one of the worst farm systems in baseball and turned into one of the best--in one season. So does he get the award in 3-5 years win the A's win 100 games? I'm confused. If someone can explain this award to me, I will give them Executive of the Year.

The LaMarr Hoyt Award for Best Run Support

This one goes to Ted Lilly. Sure, Glen Perkins led baseball in run support, but Ted Lilly got 17 wins! Lilly must be BFFs with his offense. Or he gives good mid-inning inspirational speeches with reverbed-out intsrumental guitar rock in the background. Rich Harden may have struck out 800 batters per inning with a 1.06 WHIP, but Lilly's inspiring of his offense led to 17 wins! I'd much rather have Lilly on my team than Harden! And the award for most quantity, not quality, of sarcasm goes to... me.

I'll do the Rockies awards next week and the football picking charade before Sunday.