Managerial search over. It's Dusty.

[jojo]

Here is the thing though, Wood had TJ surgery in 1999 and missed the 2000 season before Baker was involved. After coming back, he'd gotten his IP back to 213.2 in 2002 - the year before Baker arrived. The 211 he pitched in 2003 don't seem out of line. I'm guessing that Wood's fate was set in motion before Baker arrived. Many times TJ surgery is a precursor to a later shoulder problem or a result of chronic shoulder issues (Eddie Guardado is a good current example and I hope this is considered in the option decision).

Prior threw 129 Innings at U.S.C. at age 19, followed by 138 Innings at age 20. In his first year in the Cub's organization he threw 167 and 2/3 innings at three levels at age 21. At age 22 he threw 211 and 1/3 innings and then the problems appeared. The progression doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me. I'd have probably backed off by 15 innings or so in 2003, but the Cubs were in a race and can see how it happened. Cyclone posted earlier about the number of high pitch games Prior threw at age 22 and those counts may well have something to do with it. But I also remember that Prior was considered a freak of nature with perfect mechanics and mature beyond his years. I'm guessing that the organization thought the normal rules didn't apply to him and with a chance for a rare Chicago postseason on the line, the rode him hard. Maybe the same won't happen with Bailey and Cueto.

The other pitchers on Dusty's abuse lists are primarily Livan Hernandez and Carlos Zambrano. Those guys are freaks of nature that seem to be able to handle it. Actually the biggest mishandling may have been Zambrano who threw 118 Innings in 2002 and jumped to 214 in 2003 at age 22. Given Bailey's limited innings in 2007 due to the groin injury lay-off, a similar scenario is developing. I hope the organization continues to protect him. They babied him for the last few years. I don't see WK abandoning that simply because he hired Baker.

I'm as concerned as everybody that he'll do damage to Bailey, Cueto and even Arroyo, but I'm not ready to conclude it's inevitable. I'm in the wait and see camp.

Ignoring injuries, I don't think it's necessary to wait and see in order to have concerns about Baker's ability (or seeming inability) to manage a staff.

It's a given Reds starters will have higher pitch counts if Baker is running the staff rather than delegating the responsibility to the pitching coach-Baker is old school in that regard. That said I absolutely agree though that its an open question as to whether Baker caused injuries to Woods and Prior. But this much we know-he's going to ride his horses hard and when he does put them in the barn, he has no clue how to manage whats in the corral (i.e. the bullpen).

[Joseph]

I'm ok with it, right now.

Put me in the Dusty camp.

[redsmetz]

Well I can't read the entire thread that exploded yesterday with the leak of the hiring. I was in Columbus to see Bob Dylan at the Schottenstein Center. I heard the report while driving back to my motel and listening to the Red Sox/Indians game.

Perhaps it was appropriate that Dylan led off with Rainy Day Women #12 & 35. I'm not sure Dusty's not going to get stoned at every corner from some. As I've said all along, I'm a Reds fan. If I can learn to live with Davey Johnson (who did well), I can live with Dusty Baker. [BTW, good show over all; opened with Amos Lee and then Elvis Costello]

Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good,
They'll stone ya just a-like they said they would.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to go home.
Then they'll stone ya when you're there all alone.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.

Well, they'll stone ya when you're walkin' 'long the street.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to keep your seat.
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' on the floor.
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' to the door.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.

They'll stone ya when you're at the breakfast table.
They'll stone ya when you are young and able.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to make a buck.
They'll stone ya and then they'll say, "good luck."
Tell ya what, I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.

Well, they'll stone you and say that it's the end.
Then they'll stone you and then they'll come back again.
They'll stone you when you're riding in your car.
They'll stone you when you're playing your guitar.
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.

Well, they'll stone you when you walk all alone.
They'll stone you when you are walking home.
They'll stone you and then say you are brave.
They'll stone you when you are set down in your grave.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.

[Red in Chicago]

My father (lifelong Cub fan) is already laughing at me. I remember when the Cubs first signed Baker, my father and the entire north-side all thought they were locks for at least three world series rings. We all know how that ended.

I only wish I could so blindly believe in Dusty, but nothing could be further from the truth. As RMR previously stated, as a Chicagoan, I'm embarrassed by this decision and will honestly have a very hard time watching this team as long as he's in the dugout.

I guess the sewer lines from Chicago to Cincinnat have been completed now and Wrigleyville just took one hell of a dump.

Shame on you BC. Shame on you.

[lollipopcurve]

I guess the sewer lines from Chicago to Cincinnat have been completed now and Wrigleyville just took one hell of a dump.

And that would make you a green fly, wouldn't it?

[pedro]

Norris Hopper will be the starting CF next year. Bet on it. Hamilton will be traded or Dunn's option will not be picked up.

pshaw.

[GullyFoyle]

Why this is disappointing to me is that beyond wether Dusty Baker ends up being a good or bad manager, this is the clearest indication yet of the direction that upper management wants to go.

And that direction is old school baseball that typically requires lots of money to do successfully. I was holding out hopes that management was secretly looking for new ways to think creatively about putting a team together on a budget. Dusty does not seem to be a manger that thinks in new ways.

(sorry for the cross post... meant for this to be here and not the Poll thread.)

[mbgrayson]

Dusty Baker is the 'Anti-Bill James':

Dusty Baker’s record with the Cubs:
2003: 88-74, Pthag record 85-77, .323 OBP(13th in NL) 492 BBs(14th)
2004: 89-73, Pthag record 94-68, .328 OBP(11th in NL) 489 BBs(14th)
2005: 79-83, Pthag record 80-82, .324 OBP(11th in NL) 419 Bbs(16th )
2006: 66-96, Pthag record 70-92, .319 OBP(16th in NL) 395 BBs(16th)

Other than his 1st year, actual record was worse than pthag record every year. Number of walks declined each year.

These stats are from http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/2003.shtml

[traderumor]

Seriously though... I've read numerous times here on Redszone that the manager doesn't matter, that it's all about talent period. I'm getting whiplash.

[M2]

Basically Baker seems miscast for what appeared to be a role where the Reds go forth with a youth movement that includes significant playing time (and probably significant growing pains) for some highly thought of prospects.

I think you should be angrier at yourself for having engaged in self-deception than at the Reds for having hired Baker. Objectively speaking, the youth movement was never this organization's plan and it was fairly outspoken on that point. It was an option consistently not chosen.

To many, this is a frustrating hire. The Reds had a chance to go a new direction, "new school" in a sense where they follow models like Cleveland, Boston etc. But now with Baker's hire and talk of reshaping the FO with Jocketty, it seems clearer that the Reds are more apt to chase a more traditional approach which at least IMHO, is full of inefficiencies that many smart clubs have recognized and begun to exploit expertly.

Seriously, did you think that had a snowball's chance in hell? Bob Castellini? Wayne Krivsky? New school?

As for how well "a more traditional approach" will work, let's cut some of the hyperbole. It can be done with great success. Whether the Reds have the leadership and talent to do it is another matter, but it's hardly a given that traditionalists will fail.

[vaticanplum]

Well, crap.

Most of my thoughts have been summed up pretty well, especially by Stormy, Cyclone et al. M2, I applaud your maturity and open-mindedness; I wish I had more of it myself to calm me down. But I can't help thinking that this move is symbolic of precisely the opposite in the Reds' organization. Hiring this particular manager smacks of immaturity and bullheadedness; it's the six-year-old kid on the playground who wants the biggest and shiniest piece of candy even though everyone knows it tastes bad.

Which is only fitting, because immaturity and bullheadedness are two qualities I'd put down as the primary motivators of one Dusty Baker. Besides being a manager who makes pretty clueless managerial decisions as outlined in this thread, I find him personally intolerable. The list of people in baseball whom I actively dislike is pretty short: it's Dusty Baker and Curt Schilling. Baker is the primary reason why I have such a hatred for the Cubs. i moved to Chicago to research the Cubs; I had nothing against them when I moved there. And I watched Dusty Baker fall apart as the team did. The worse they got, the faster his emotional age fell. I saw him every night on TV blaming someone else, anyone else, for the failures of the team. Hendry didn't care enough. All his players were injured. His young kids couldn't handle the pressure. I'm not making this up. He is a narrow-minded, short-sighted, egotistical, irresponsible and immature crybaby, and nothing in his career convinces me that the Cincinnati Reds are a team about which he can feel excited and nurturing.

There's a word that has gotten thrown around a lot with the Reds the last few years, and that is creativity, ie. lack thereof. I see this as pretty much the most uncreative move the Reds could have made here. Dusty Baker comes in here with his own well-documented philosophies and unwillingness to adjust, and he comes to a team that is particularly in need of serious adjustments and creative moves, both in the front office and on the field. This is not an untalented team, but one of the reasons it has been so bad is because no one has yet shown the desire or the ability to make the pieces fit together (although Mackinin did come close). You've got an offensive powerhouse that needs to be treated delicately to produce his best, a riff-raff relief crew, quite a handful of young players whose production will be largely determined by how they're handled over the next couple of years, and a couple of very good starting pitchers who would probably pitch 20 innings straight given the chance. How much faith do I have that the person able to successfully put these pieces together and fill in the gaps is one who thinks walks are silly and 150 pitches is legitimate -- someone who, more to the point, thinks that any strategical part of baseball can be summed up as simply as "[blank] are silly"? Yeah, way less than zero faith, I'd say.

I think M2 is right in some sense -- this speaks to a direction, albeit a moronic one, and shows commitment to the team, albeit a hollow one. The thing is, though, if by chance the Reds spent $100 million and come up with a free agent team that can win for a period of months, and maybe make the playoffs, and Dusty Baker happens to have the luck not to completely run it into the ground, put me down as not interested in seeing them play. Dusty Baker gets the glory while assembling an utterly uncreative team that wins by happenstance -- the kind of team that can win just as easily as it can lose. I am not someone who would rather be lucky than good. I feel that this is a team with great possibilities given a few brilliant moves, and I was excited by the possibility that this could be a true chance for the Reds to grab someone who could identify what those moves could be. I even still think Krivsky shows potential of falling into that category provided that he was surrounded by others who have it too. Well, Baker sure as hell doesn't, and the fact that Castellini hired him says to me that he doesn't either, and I've got to believe that if there were any truth to the Jocketty rumors at all, they've just been obliterated by this hiring. If everything goes their way, do the Reds stand a chance of winning? Sure. Is it going to be a sustained, well-considered, smart kind of winning? Not a chance in hell. And I can't help thinking in my heart of hearts that a Reds world series title just got delayed about ten years regardless -- and that delay isn't from a starting point anytime soon.

I know myself better than to say that I'll quit following the Reds, especially when they're right in my own backyard at the moment. But the bitterness I've begun to taste as a baseball fan the last couple of years just became a whole lot more palpable. Damn you stupid Reds for hacking apart another piece of my naive optimism.

[pedro]

Many here like to point to Cleveland as an example of how a good franchise should be run and they're right. Regardless though, I think many here miss the point of what has made Cleveland successful. It isn't some "new school" revelation. It's the fact that they've had management continuity for the past 16 years between John Hart and Mark Shapiro which has given them the time to build a successful organization where everyone is pulling in the same direction. The idea that the Reds could could simply fire their management and hire people that are more like "those guys in cleveland" kind of misses the point IMO. Without the patience to allow them to see their plan through, Hart & Shapiro would have never been successful either. This stuff takes time.

[traderumor]

I think you should be angrier at yourself for having engaged in self-deception than at the Reds for having hired Baker. Objectively speaking, the youth movement was never this organization's plan and it was fairly outspoken on that point. It was an option consistently not chosen.



Seriously, did you think that had a snowball's chance in hell? Bob Castellini? Wayne Krivsky? New school?

As for how well "a more traditional approach" will work, let's cut some of the hyperbole. It can be done with great success. Whether the Reds have the leadership and talent to do it is another matter, but it's hardly a given that traditionalists will fail.

I'm not sure if you have recently read Bill James' classic article about his days as a fan of the Royals that WOY kindly publishes periodically, but that is exactly what I hear in your posts. It is becoming ever more commonplace for fandom to look for a model franchise or method that they wish their team would adopt, then rail when decision-making is approached in a manner different than what they would do. I blame real estate mogul infomercials more than sabrmetrics, though

[reds44]

From the Reds

CINCINNATI - At a press conference at noon tomorrow at Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati Reds president and chief executive officer Bob Castellini and executive vice president and general manager Wayne Krivsky will introduce Dusty Baker as field manager.

Baker, 58, has agreed to a 3-year contract through the 2010 season. He becomes the 60th field manager in club history, the 50th skipper since 1900 and the first hired outside the organization since Lou Piniella in 1990.

In 2007 the fifth-place Reds went 72-90 under managers Jerry Narron (31-51) and Pete Mackanin (41-39). Mackanin replaced Narron on July 1.

Baker has been named National League Manager of the Year 3 times by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (1993, 1997, 2000), twice by The Sporting News (1997, 2000) and once by The Associated Press (1993). His teams finished first or second 9 times and won at least 90 games in a season 5 times.

In 14 seasons as a Major League manager he has produced a 1,162-1,041 record (.527), including 840-715 (.540) in 10 years with the San Francisco Giants (1993-2002) and 322-326 (.497) in 4 campaigns with the Chicago Cubs (2003-06). His 1,162 career victories tie Lou Boudreau for 38th on the all-time list, and his .527 career winning percentage also ranks 38th all-time.

Baker skippered his team into the playoffs 4 times, into the National League Championship Series twice and in 2002 guided the Giants to the NL pennant. In 2003 and 2004, he led the Cubs to consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1971-72. His 1998 Giants club lost to the Cubs in a tiebreaker, and in 1993 the Giants won 103 games but finished second in the West Division to the Atlanta Braves, who won 104.

Baker has been to the playoffs 9 times overall during his baseball career, including 4 times as a manager, 4 times as a player and once as a coach. As an outfielder he helped the Los Angeles Dodgers win the 1981 World Series title. He has participated in 5 World Series overall, including 3 as a player (1977, 1978, 1981), as manager in 2002 and as a coach in 1989.

In 19 seasons and 2,039 games as a player (1968-86) Baker hit .278 with 242 HR and 1,013 RBI for the Braves, Dodgers, Giants and Oakland Athletics. He was an All-Star twice (1981, 1982), won a pair of Silver Slugger Awards (1980, 1981) and earned a Rawlings Gold Glove Award (1981).

[M2]

I'm not sure if you have recently read Bill James' classic article about his days as a fan of the Royals that WOY kindly publishes periodically, but that is exactly what I hear in your posts. It is becoming ever more commonplace for fandom to look for a model franchise or method that they wish their team would adopt, then rail when decision-making is approached in a manner different than what they would do. I blame real estate mogul infomercials more than sabrmetrics, though

Yeah, that sort of sums it up.

I've long recognized the Reds don't share my view of the game. What's been annoying is the franchise has been so wishy-washy about employing its own view of the game, so commitment averse.

I still reserve the right to disagree with the particulars, but at least they're maximizing on doing what they do. It should be noted that Phillips (in particular) and Arroyo were not sabermetric-inclined moves and they worked out awfully well.