So to borrow from George Grande, we all know Dusty Baker's story. Obviously he has a reputation as a arm killer which may or may not be deserved. He also has a reputation for not valuing OBP, and batting the CF-SS 1 or 2 regardless of their ability to get on base. I wanted to see if this was true so I went back and did some research on Baseball-Reference.
1) I looked at the player to get the most starts at leadoff and as the #2 hitter in a lineup.
2) I marked down the player's position, the On base percentage, and the rank of that OBP in the approximate starting lineup.
The results can be seen here.
A few points I took away.
-The Centerfielder does in fact bat first almost all the time. The only seasons where an individual CF didn't lead off the majority of the games, it was because there was more than one CF, and someone else just happened to play everyday and get enough games at leadoff.
-Wow Barry Bonds was unreal
-Dusty has actually been okay at getting high OBP guys into one of the top two spots, if not usually both. The time with the Reds has shown him to be much worse at this than any time before.
-I think you can crush Dusty for this, but only a little. He's a pretty traditional manager, in that his power hitters bat 3-6. This may be a detriment to the "optimal" lineup, but it's not like it puts the Reds at a disadvantage versus most teams as most managers are quite similar.