Managers of the Year for 2019

Rocco Baldelli -- who helped write one of baseball's biggest turnarounds after taking over the Minnesota Twins, and Mike Shildt -- whose first full season as Cardinals skipper saw dramatic improvements in defense and starting pitching -- are your 2019 Managers of the Year.

After a promising playing career was shortened by injuries and illness, Baldelli went into scouting and coaching before being named Twins skipper last winter.

Shildt's path to the dugout was far more unique. His playing career topped out at UNC Asheville, where he accepted that he just couldn't hit a curveball, so he turned to coaching. Working first at the high school, then college level, Mike joined the Cardinals organization as a scout, later moving into minor league coaching and managing, before replacing Mike Matheny midway through 2018. His first full season brought the 'birds back to the playoffs for the first time since 2015 -- and was capped by an NLDS win over the Braves. Just the eighth man to manage a major league club despite not having ever played pro ball at any level, Mike Shildt is the the first with that background to earn Manager of the Year honors.

Though I saw the Twins/Yankees series back in April, I didn't get a chance to zoom in on Baldelli. Fortunately, I had this close up from 2015, when he was coaching 1st base for Tampa Bay. Despite being at a couple of Mets/Cardinals games at Citi Field -- and a spring training contest in Florida -- I never caught Shildt on the field.

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