The Ian Rintel Award for Front Office Executive of the Year recognizes the league's most improved team from one season to the next. The award is named after former owner Ian Rintel, whose Waikiki Keys bounced back from a 33-129 record in 1993 to a 76-86 record in 1994. The 43-win jump stood for 14 years as the best turn-around in DMBL history until it was eclipsed in 2008 by Eric Wickstrom, who improved his Las Vegas Rat Pack by 54 wins.

And the award goes to....

Chris Pucci, Carolina Mudcats

The Mudcats came up short in their bid to win their first-ever World Series trophy, but at least Chris Pucci brought home some hardware with his second Rintel Award. Led by 2B Dustin Pedroia (.298, 59 2B, 106 R, 84 RBI), SP Trevor Cahill (18-10, 3.57 ERA, 11.6 R/9), and RP Heath Bell (3.41, 12.3 R/9, 31 SV), the Mudcats bounced back from last year's last-place finish all the way to the #6 seed, an eight-place improvement. (Alas, they were knocked out in the first round after a tough series.) The 29-win improvement is tied for the ninth-best turnaround in league history -- quite a reversal from the previous year, when their 34-win decline was the second-biggest drop in league history! Pucci had previously won the Rintel in 1999, after turning around the previous squad's 80-82 record to a 94-68 mark and a 5th-place finish. But that wasn't the biggest turn-around in club history; that happened in 2009, when the Mudcats went 94-68, a 32-win improvement from the previous year. (The Mudcats didn't win the Rintel that year, as Marietta had a 35-win improvement.) The Mudcats have been on quite a roller-coaster recently -- 62 wins in '08, 94 wins in '09, 60 wins in '10, and now 89 wins in '11. What will '12 bring?

The team the Mudcats beat for the Rintel beat them in the playoffs. Mark Hrywna's Hoboken Cutters improved by 18 games and 6 1/2 places. After winning just 76 games and finishing 10th last year, the Cutters rode Jose Bautista and Miguel Cabrera all the way to Game 6 in the second round against the eventual World Series winner -- the Las Vegas Rat Pack. Eric Wickstrom's squad had the third-biggest improvement, from an 81-win, 9th place finish in '10 to a 95-win, 2nd place finish (and first-ever league championship) in '11.

The Arkansas Golden Falcons are heading in the right direction after their rebuilding project took a step backward last year. Mike Matiash's fabled squad had climbed back to .500 in '09, then dropped to 62 wins and 13th place in '10. This year they racked up a modest 73 wins and a 10th place finish... Mike Hornick had his best year yet, winning 69 games and finishing 12th. It's 7 more wins than last year.

None of the above teams had a winning record in 2010. It's tough to improve when you're already a winning team, but that's exactly what the next four teams did. Anthony "Bocci" Pucci's Philadelphia Endzone Animals won a league-high 96 games this year, a 6-win improvement from last year's 5th-best finish; Yaro Zajac's Vancouver Iron Fist improved by 3 wins to 94; and last year's Rintel Award winners, the Calvosa Brothers, raised the bar by one more win after winning 92 games; and Brent Campbell saw his Hillsborough Hired Hitmen improve by one game, from 83 wins to 84.

Only one team didn't go up or down from the previous year. Nick Pucci joined the league in 2009, and his Amityville Ant Slayers have won exactly 71 games (and finished in 11th place) every year.

The other four teams declined from the previous year. The Blue Ridge Bombers under Tom Zagenczyk took a step backward, going from 83 wins and a 7th-place tie in '10 to 78 wins and the 9th-best record in '11... David Landsman's Marietta Mighty Men dropped from a league-best 102 wins in '10 to 86 wins and the 7th-best record in '11, 3 games out of the post-season... The Bridgewater Mallers had the biggest fall in terms of the standings, from 92 wins and 2nd place in '10 to 64 wins and 13th place, a drop of 11 rungs in the standings... and finally, the biggest loser: Craig Garretson's once mighty Newark Sugar Bears won a franchise-low 90 games last year, but that was good enough for a wildcard berth and an eventual World Series appearance. This year, the Sugar Bears missed the playoffs for the first time in their history, winning just 49 games and finishing dead last. The decline by 41 wins is the biggest drop in league history -- the previous record was 35, set by the Rat Pack between 2006 and 2007. Wickstrom turned that around in 2008 as the biggest improvement in league history -- can the Sugar Bears do the same?

Let's take a look at the previous award winners: