Mlb 2015

[triggercut]

Baker has used pitch counts since the days of Chicago. And no, Prior and Wood were ruined because they had arm killer deliveries. They should have learned a thing or two from Maddux.

the problem with Baker is he is old school and not a stat nut. But he is a manager that knows how to keep players happy and focused on the game.

114
118
100
116
131
129
109
124
131
133
133
116
119

Those are Mark Prior’s pitch counts at the end of 2003. I’m sure they had nothing to do with his breakdown.

[triggercut]

“I think walks are overrated unless you can run… If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks and can’t run, most of the time they’re clogging up the bases for somebody who can run.”

"Who's been the champions the last seven, eight years? ...Have you ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks? Walks help. But you ain't going to walk across the plate. You're going to hit across the plate. That's the school I come from."

"It's called hitting, and it ain't called walking. Do you ever see the top 10 walking? You see top 10 batting average. A lot of those top 10 do walk. But the name of the game is to hit."

--Dusty Baker, Cubs manager (Chicago Daily Herald)

[mtkafka]

“I think walks are overrated unless you can run… If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks and can’t run, most of the time they’re clogging up the bases for somebody who can run.”

"Who's been the champions the last seven, eight years? ...Have you ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks? Walks help. But you ain't going to walk across the plate. You're going to hit across the plate. That's the school I come from."

"It's called hitting, and it ain't called walking. Do you ever see the top 10 walking? You see top 10 batting average. A lot of those top 10 do walk. But the name of the game is to hit."

--Dusty Baker, Cubs manager (Chicago Daily Herald)

guys a genius. i guess you made your point!

[triggercut]

guys a genius. i guess you made your point!

I think I pretty much did. He’s a terrible, terrible manager.

Let’s try this: 20 years as a major league manager. 1 pennant. No titles.

[Pyperkub]

At the time in the tail end of the blatant steroid era, that was true. When you have Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, Rich Aurilia, etc. as well as a pretty good bullpen, the 3-run homer is a perfectly viable strategy.

The fact remains that until this year, he was the only Cubs Manager to win a playoff series in almost 100 years. He also had the Giants on the cusp of their first title in over 50 years.

I think every Cubs fan in the world would probably be praising him as the greatest Cubs Manager of their lifetime if Bartman hadn’t reached out for that ball, even if all the naysayers are correct in that his managing directly led to the collapse of Prior and Wood’s arms.

[triggercut]

At the time in the tail end of the blatant steroid era, that was true. When you have Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, Rich Aurilia, etc. as well as a pretty good bullpen, the 3-run homer is a perfectly viable strategy.

The real laughs are him using the Yankees as an example, since they were a team that was famous for working counts, running up pitch counts, and drawing walks. They talked about getting on base and working pitchers all the damn time.

[Pyperkub]

Yeah, the moment got to Collins there for sure. A good throw would have nailed Hosmer at home though but that definitely fit the Royals style well.

You have to think that the end of the 2014 World Series was also in their minds when they held Gordon at 3rd and the series ended with him there.

[mtkafka]

I dont want you to think I liked the guy, I thought he was just OK. I just think if you GET to manage 20 years and win some awards he must be doing something right. Managing in baseball is a crapshoot imo, you could be the best manager ever, but with a shit team wont mean crap. Vice versa, the best team on paper can likely win a division if it was run by a computer. But obviously there’s other things in the background we don’t get to see.

[Pyperkub]

The real laughs are him using the Yankees as an example, since they were a team that was famous for working counts, running up pitch counts, and drawing walks. They talked about getting on base and working pitchers all the damn time.

Looks like he said that in 2004. I imagine that his philosophy may have changed since then. The Steroid era (and the end? of it) definitely impacted Managerial (as well as GM) strategies. The Giants kept signing old guys who in the steroid era still had a few good, healthy years left, but towards the end of the 2000’s that strategy fell apart as most of the aging free-agent pickups started breaking down whereas in the late 90’s, early 00’s they would still go on to some of the best years of their careers.

While I think that Bud Black would have been a better hire, they could do a lot worse than Dusty.
Dusty even appeared to learn from the criticism of his time with the Cubs:

[rowe33]

I think every Cubs fan in the world would probably be praising him as the greatest Cubs Manager of their lifetime if Bartman hadn’t reached out for that ball, even if all the naysayers are correct in that his managing directly led to the collapse of Prior and Wood’s arms.

Come on now, let’s tell it like it is…

I think every Cubs fan in the world would probably be praising him as the greatest Cubs Manager of their lifetime if the Cubs didn’t completely choke and give away that series, even if all the naysayers are correct in that his managing directly led to the collapse of Prior and Wood’s arms.

[rowe33]

Looks like he said that in 2004. I imagine that his philosophy may have changed since then. The Steroid era (and the end? of it) definitely impacted Managerial (as well as GM) strategies. The Giants kept signing old guys who in the steroid era still had a few good, healthy years left, but towards the end of the 2000’s that strategy fell apart as most of the aging free-agent pickups started breaking down whereas in the late 90’s, early 00’s they would still go on to some of the best years of their careers.

While I think that Bud Black would have been a better hire, they could do a lot worse than Dusty.
Dusty even appeared to learn from the criticism of his time with the Cubs:

Well yeah his pitchers all ended up broken so he wasn’t able to get the full 120+ out of them anymore :D

[CraigM]

Come on now, let’s tell it like it is…

I think every Cubs fan in the world would probably be praising him as the greatest Cubs Manager of their lifetime if the Cubs didn’t completely choke and give away that series, even if all the naysayers are correct in that his managing directly led to the collapse of Prior and Wood’s arms.

^^^^^^ THIS THIS THIS!

Gonzo has more blame than Bartman. Sure there are idiots who blame Bartman, but most Cubs fans I know are embarrassed by that, not in agreement.

[gruntled]

Congrats to the Royals. And of course, as of right now the Giants are tied for 1st place.

Meanwhile - Dusty Baker is the Nats’ choice. I’ve always liked Dusty (well, not when he played for the dodgers). He surely took undeserved crap from the Reds’ fanbase. The Reds’ play the last 2 years made it abundantly clear that Dusty was not the problem.

[Lantz]

I dont want you to think I liked the guy, I thought he was just OK. I just think if you GET to manage 20 years and win some awards he must be doing something right. Managing in baseball is a crapshoot imo, you could be the best manager ever, but with a shit team wont mean crap. Vice versa, the best team on paper can likely win a division if it was run by a computer. But obviously there’s other things in the background we don’t get to see.

I’m a firm believer that 80+% of a manager’s job is stuff that fans just don’t have insight into. Building respect with ball players, balancing egos, dealing with minor injuries, instructional things, etc. There’s a reason that a lot of very smart front offices put up with managers that make some consistently dicey in game decisions. On top of it, how many times as a fan do you think the manager is an idiot for not bringing in a specific pitcher and then you find out a week later that pitcher was actually unavailable due to the flu or being too hungover or whatever.

All that said, as a fan, I think Dusty is a pretty awful manager to have for your team. When the team is doing well he’s all about himself spouting ridiculous folksy baseball talk about how white players do worse in day games because of the sun, and if the season starts to go bad he starts blaming everyone in the world except himself. While the Cubs were puking away a playoff spot in 2004, Dusty was more focused on feuding with the Cubs broadcasters then focusing on the games. The broadcast team was Chip Carey and Steve Stone at his auditioning-to-be-a-GM worst so they were putrid, but Dusty and half the team engaging with them was just brutal. I also think Dusty is the kind of guy who likes to do some clearly old fashioned pre-analytics things as ‘back in my day we played real baseball’ kind of thing. Some of this can be endearing at times, but a lot of times it is maddening. He also loves him the hell out of older role players who he will find 450 ABs to waste somehow.

Of course, if the Cubs won the WS in 2003 we’d all love him. Hell, we all love Ditka still and he’s spent a good portion of the last 20 years trying to make us hate him. My obligatory personal Ditka story is that he told my wife that she shouldn’t get married because marriages were horrible and never last anyways the day before our wedding.

[Pyperkub]

Congrats to the Royals. And of course, as of right now the Giants are tied for 1st place.

Meanwhile - Dusty Baker is the Nats’ choice. I’ve always liked Dusty (well, not when he played for the dodgers). He surely took undeserved crap from the Reds’ fanbase. The Reds’ play the last 2 years made it abundantly clear that Dusty was not the problem.

Dodgers @ 8-1 favorites to win the World Series. Giants @ 20-1.

Thinking a flyer bet on the Giants even year mojo might be fun. Better get it in before they sign Greinke though…

[triggercut]

Here’s the problem with Dusty: why?

I mean seriously. Why? The biggest problem with Dusty Baker is that you’ve hired him to be your manager, instead of dozens of qualified candidates who are as qualified and would do a better job.

Hiring Dusty to run your team is like scratching a poison ivy rash. In the very short term, it brings some benefit. Once that goes away, though, you’re left with a worse situation than you had in the first place.

[dfs]

Meanwhile - Dusty Baker is the Nats’ choice. I’ve always liked Dusty (well, not when he played for the dodgers). He surely took undeserved crap from the Reds’ fanbase. The Reds’ play the last 2 years made it abundantly clear that Dusty was not the problem.

well now…

Baker certainly didn’t cause arm issues with the reds. Not sure how much of that was Baker and how much was Brian Price who was the pitching coach at the time, but the reds starting pitchers were frankly unnaturally healthy during the time Baker was with the reds.

Baker did a LOT right as manager of the reds. He brought a level of gravitas to the job and that was a good thing. The reds could not afford to fire him, so the front office had to listen to him.

There were a few unfortunate clubhouse episodes with Baker in charge, but he could have weathered that if he had managed to close out a season with a team playing well.

In the end post season-end of season record with the reds is what got him fired.
Baker’s team’s got manhandeled by the Phillies in 2010. Came back to cini 2 games up in a 5 game series with the giants and lost three in a row in 2012 and lost 5 in a row to close out the 2013 season many to the Pirates who then got home field for the play in game which the reds promptly lost.

Baker insisted that each game was just as important as any other, meaning the play in game was just as important as a game in May. I understand he was trying to keep his team lose and not tight, but they ended up playing lifeless baseball when it mattered. Pretty regularly the cardinals would come to town…Baker would give the mandatory “each game is just as important as any other” quote…the reds would get swept at home by their biggest competition. You can chose to blame the players or Baker or both or claim that it was luck, but the reds chose to blame Baker.

At the time, the Reds pitching coach, Brian Price was seen as a bit of a hot commodity who was going to leave the franchise in order to take the manger’s job with somebody else. Ditching Baker to promote Price seemed like an easy call. In retrospect it was like mailing yourself a letter bomb. Price is clearly over matched as a manager.

Anyway…more than you wanted. Based on his time here, I think Baker may be just the kind of “change of scenery” manager that can help a club with talent clear the air and move forward. We certainly didn’t see arm-shredding tendencies.

[Rock8man]

Downtown traffic was crazy this morning. All the schools are closed in the KC area, including all the suburbs, and it feels like everyone is headed into downtown for the parade to welcome home the Royals. My brother is taking his kids downtown to the parade too. I wish I wasn’t stuck at work.

[dfs]

Here’s the problem with Dusty: why?

I mean seriously. Why? The biggest problem with Dusty Baker is that you’ve hired him to be your manager, instead of dozens of qualified candidates who are as qualified and would do a better job.

Hiring Dusty to run your team is like scratching a poison ivy rash. In the very short term, it brings some benefit. Once that goes away, though, you’re left with a worse situation than you had in the first place.

I think Baker is actually a pretty good call for the Nationals. They have the talent to win now, but need somebody to clear the air in the clubhouse and get all the horses pulling the right direction. Baker is a big enough figure that he can do that.

Flags fly forever and the Nationals should be reaching for the ring now, not worrying about what the franchise will look like after the new hire leaves. If Baker give the nat’s 3-4 good years that’s a win.

My concern about Baker is that…yes he can get your team into the playoffs on the strength of talent alone, but that once he’s there he doesn’t seem to adjust to “play this game to win” baseball and gets out-managed on a routine basis. 162 good games and then…ouch. I would love to see him lose that image, but that’s on him.

[Scuzz]

“I think walks are overrated unless you can run… If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy who walks and can’t run, most of the time they’re clogging up the bases for somebody who can run.”

"Who's been the champions the last seven, eight years? ...Have you ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks? Walks help. But you ain't going to walk across the plate. You're going to hit across the plate. That's the school I come from."

"It's called hitting, and it ain't called walking. Do you ever see the top 10 walking? You see top 10 batting average. A lot of those top 10 do walk. But the name of the game is to hit."

--Dusty Baker, Cubs manager (Chicago Daily Herald)

So no sabremetrics for Dusty. :)

As a player I was a Dusty Baker fan, I lost respect for him when he was the Giants manager. He doesn’t handle pitchers well at all and he lets players do whatever they want. Why the Nats would turn to him I have no idea.