Managerial search over. It's Dusty.

[RedsFan75]

Originally Posted by jojo

Give him a good team and he'll probably get them to play like a good team. Give him garbage and they'll play like garbage.

What I want to see is if you give him a decent but flawed team how does it play out, and can he play on the strengths and reduce the weaknesses

[M2]

Originally Posted by jojo

Give him a good team and he'll probably get them to play like a good team. Give him garbage and they'll play like garbage.

Yet following that line of thinking, Baker's managerial pedigree makes it a lot more likley that he will given a good team than if a competent, but fairly non-descript guy like Mackanin was on the job.

Baker creates an impetus to try to improve the roster for the immediate next season that the Reds have lacked for years on end.

So if Baker can probably get a good team to play like a good team and if his hire is a catalyst for the front office taking greater pains to assemble a good team, then wouldn't that make him a good hire?

[KronoRed]

Originally Posted by OldXOhio

Good for you cowboy....what's that got to do w/ this hire?

A big bowl of squat.

[dabvu2498]

Originally Posted by OldXOhio

Good for you cowboy....what's that got to do w/ this hire?

Looking at Brantley's career, the only two managers he played for that would qualify as young would be Terry Francona, and none other than Jerry Narron.

[wolfboy]

Originally Posted by WVRedsFan

What are they paying him? $4 million. Good grief, they paid the wonderful tandem of Cromier, Stanton, and Lohse more than that!

I'm not happy with Baker, but this is not the end of the world. As another Zoner said, the guy, at least has a winning record regardless.

And yes, I had warmed to Pete Macklanin, but let's not hang the guy until he fails.

Why pay more for Baker when Pete could get similar results? Why pay more for Milton when someone like Belisle could have gotten similar results? Why pay more for Stanton when Salmon costs less?

It isn't the end of the world, but it is a sign that they still don't get it.

And Eric Milton still has a winning record

[Matt700wlw]

Word is, players now want to come here and play for Dusty.

I don't know who these players are....and even if I did, I probably couldn't tell you

[KronoRed]

Originally Posted by Matt700wlw

Word is, players now want to come here and play for Dusty.

I don't know who these players are....and even if I did, I probably couldn't tell you

Rich Aurilia
JT Snow
Bill Mueller

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by KronoRed

Rich Aurilia
JT Snow
Bill Mueller

Neiffi Perez

[jojo]

Originally Posted by M2

Baker creates an impetus to try to improve the roster for the immediate next season that the Reds have lacked for years on end.

But if that means turning outside the Org for solutions, it's a FA market where such an impetus results in overpaying Mike Sweeney to be your right handed *pop* and Josh Fogg to be your #3 for the next four years...

IMHO, Krivsky has always worked best at the margins. Trusting him to do well with loose purse strings seems like a gamble. If Krivsky really has a mandate to win next season, finding a solution to the *Jr* problem should be near the top of his off season to do list.

[RBA]

Originally Posted by Matt700wlw

Word is, players now want to come here and play for Dusty.

I don't know who these players are....and even if I did, I probably couldn't tell you

It is not a secret if it is known by three people.

[Puffy]

Originally Posted by RBA

It is not a secret if it is known by three people.

When did Conficius take over your handle? Should we hold an exorcism?

[M2]

Originally Posted by jojo

But if that means turning outside the Org for solutions, it's a FA market where such an impetus results in overpaying Mike Sweeney to be your right handed *pop* and Josh Fogg to be your #3 for the next four years...

IMHO, Krivsky has always worked best at the margins. Trusting him to do well with loose purse strings seems like a gamble. If Krivsky really has a mandate to win next season, finding a solution to the *Jr* problem should be near the top of his off season to do list.

I agree that trusting Krivsky to build a contender for next season is a gamble. That said, if he can't do it, then I don't really care about his margin walking skills. Supposedly it's a GM's dream to be told to go out and bring me home a champion.

As for the first part, free agency isn't the only, or even the primary, way to bring in talent.

I'm fully allowing that they might do this poorly. That's a very real possibility. Yet at least they're going to do it in earnest and that's better than the stuck-in-limbo plan that's been employed since the advent of Carl Lindner.

[pedro]

Here's a now almost ten year old article about Dusty from BP. Pretty interesting read that definitely touches on some of the gripes that many have with Dusty while discussing his managerial style and how it might lead to success nonetheless.

Evaluating Managers
Another Trip Down a Dusty Road

by Steven Rubio

A headline for a recent Baseball Weekly cover story described Dusty Baker as an "inspirational manager" in charge of "overachieving Giants." The article included gushing praise from players, fellow managers, and even an opposing general manager who stated that Baker "handles people like nobody I've ever seen ... I'd get rid of my own guy right now if I knew I could have Dusty Baker managing for me." Throughout the avalanche of compliments, one matter comes up again and again: Dusty is a supreme leader of men, a true "manager" as one might imagine a manager in any business, not only baseball.

Stat-based analysts often bemoan the use of so-called "intangibles" as markers of value for baseball players. While no one denies the existence of intangible contributions, there is enough tangible statistical evidence describing a player's contribution to make intangibles largely irrelevant to the analyst's task. What a player does on the field of play is recorded in detail in the statistical record, and while writers with a romantic or philosophic bent might draw delightful word pictures about things that "don't appear in the boxscores," the analyst is concerned mainly with what happens on the field. A tangible run scored is always worth more than an intangible contribution, or rather, if the intangible DOES contribute something, it WILL appear in the boxscore. As Bill James pointed out long ago, if an elephant walks in the snow, there will be footprints.

James' most recent book, the fascinating and excellent "Bill James' Guide to Baseball Managers from 1870 to Today," isn't about baseball players, but instead focuses on the people who direct the players in their efforts. As always, James offers an inspired read: intelligent, catty, confident of his opinion no matter how right or wrong he is, James is ultimately a great writer as much or more than he is a great analyst. (And it always bears repeating that the quality of James' writing is what sets him apart from the large majority of statiscally-based analysts of baseball.) However, James falls victim to certain pitfalls of the stat-based approach that are instructive for all of us who would examine baseball under the statistical microscope. For it is one thing to assert that statistics are extremely important to the analysis of baseball player performance, and to claim that a player's contribution can be accurately reflected in his stats, but quite another thing to assume that everything in life can be reduced to tangibles. Anti-statheads, obsessed with dismissing quantifiable evidence, too frequently reject the entire notion of quantification; their arguments are all intangible, even proudly so. But statheads must also be aware of the dangers of falling too much in love with our own tools, and must remember that what works in one situation (evaluating player performance) will not necessarily work in other situations.

Take baseball managers, for instance. Analysts continue to make fine progress in breaking down the "percentages," helping us to understand the relative value of bunting, stealing bases, and other aspects of the game that are controlled by the manager. These tangible parts of a manager's job are important, and any evaluation of a manager's contributions must take into account the value (negative or positive) of his in-game tactical decisions. James does much to advance this aspect of analysis in his book, including an interesting discussion of what information should go on a manager's baseball card.

Furthermore, it is becoming more clear with time that the way a manager uses his pitching staff is vital not only to the short-term success of a club, but also to the long-term success of both the club and the individual pitchers. The increased attention to pitch counts is only one area where stat-based analysis is offering vital information which contemporary managers (hello, Jim Leyland) ignore at the peril of their pitchers' arms.

Nonetheless, I want to argue here that for managers, unlike for baseball players, the intangibles are indeed important. As James notes on the very first page of his book, "There is one indispensable quality of a baseball manager. The manager must be able to command the respect of his players. This is absolute; everything else is negotiable."

James then spends the next 300 pages leading up to the above- mentioned manager's baseball card, which lists tangible, quantifiable evidence about a manager's performance but, unavoidably, completely ignores that which he claims on the first page is absolute.

Now, we can safely ignore speculation about a player's intangible contributions, because we have footprints in the snow: the statistical record. I don't care how Barry Bonds hit that homer. I care that he hit a homer rather than struck out. But I suspect data about how often Dusty Baker calls a pitchout is the wrong kind of footprint. If we follow those footprints, we'll end up at the end of the wrong road, in a way that doesn't happen when evaluating player performance. It is the player's job to produce on the field, which is what the statistics explain. But what is a manager's job? To lead the team, to "handle people," to extract the best possible performance from the players he is given, to "command the respect of his players." And I don't think we're ever going to be able to quantify that part of the manager's job. Again, a player might have some influence on his teammates in this regard, but the far larger portion of his contributions come on the field, while the manager's influence can only be felt off the field.

Dusty Baker does many stupid things during a baseball game. He bunts too much, he overworks his bullpens, his lineups are often oddball, he seems to have a preference for "proven" veteran players over young guys who might actually be able to play well. But Dusty also has two Manager of the Year awards, given for seasons where his team seemed to outperform expectations in a huge way. Coincidence? Mere chance? Perhaps. But it's possible that opposed to all the negative stuff Dusty does with strategy, tactics, or lineup construction is one huge positive that more than overcomes anything else you can say about him: he commands the respect of his players. Maybe they play better for Dusty than they would for other managers. How do we quantify that? How important is it that Dusty gets the best possible season out of guys like Rey Sanchez, when Rey Sanchez isn't much good to begin with? That's pretty hard to say, but Baker's success with two different Giants' teams tells me that he is doing something right, and it doesn't seem to have much to do with knowing when to bunt.

The great Earl Weaver was another master at maximizing the performance of his players, although you couldn't find two more different managerial styles than Weaver's and Baker's. While Weaver liked players who, in the contemporary parlance, played "within themselves," he also firmly believed that "there is no such thing as a 'winning' or a 'losing' player. It comes down to a player's ability and how he produces." (This quote comes from the indispensable "Weaver on Strategy.") What Weaver attempted to do as a manager was to draw on the player's ability. He looked, not at what a player was bad at, but instead at what a player was good at, and then tried to find as many opportunities as possible to get the player in the game when what was needed was what the player was good at. So he'd have his lefty-hitting slugger and his righty- hitting slugger, his defensive specialist and his utility man, and he'd maneuver the team so that each player got plenty of chances to perform his specialty. He wasn't friends with his players; on the contrary, he felt "a manager should stay as far away as possible from his players," and claimed he didn't say ten words to Frank Robinson in Robby's entire Oriole career. Nonetheless, by focusing on a player's ability and accentuating the player's strengths, Weaver got the most out of those players.

But that's not what managers like Dusty Baker do. Baker focuses on what Weaver claims doesn't exist: 'winning' and 'losing' players. Dusty Baker has an apparent ability to make each player on his team feel like a winner. Whatever the motivational tools, Dusty's players believe in him and believe in themselves, a fact made clear in the Baseball Weekly article. Rich Rodriguez says the Giants are winning for one reason: "It's Dusty." Robb Nen states that "you want to play for a guy like that." Even the opposition takes notice: Gary Sheffield chimes in to claim that "It doesn't matter how the cards are dealt to him, Dusty gets the most out of it, and the man finds a way to win." As noted earlier, Baker's strategic moves are not always as clearly helpful as those of a controlling manager like Weaver. But perhaps Baker is indeed creating 'winning' players.

It's important to note that baseball is the most individual of team sports. While teamwork is paramount in sports like basketball, football, and soccer, where each player continually interacts on the field with other players, in baseball, it comes down to a pitcher and a batter. If the leftfielder and the catcher don't get along, it hardly matters, whereas a shooting forward who gets on the wrong side of a point guard might not see the ball as often as he should. And again, this seems to be where a Dusty Baker shines. Dusty would get a guy like Glenallen Hill, who was down because he'd lost his starting job, and somehow he'd convince Hill to keep from letting his disappointment affect his play. The problem wasn't that Hill might have poisoned the "teamwork," the clubhouse atmosphere. The problem was that Hill might have poisoned his own attitude to where he couldn't reach even his own low potential. Baker makes each player feel good about himself, creates 'winning' players, then hopes the result is a winning team. Which is backwards from Weaver's argument that "A winning player is nothing more than a player on a winning team."

I think Earl Weaver was the greatest manager in my lifetime, partly because what he did taught statheads how to think like statheads. Weaver was also one of the most successful managers of all time. But for managers, there is more than one road to success, and some of those roads come down to intangibles, those very things which are so maddeningly useless when analyzing players. I don't think there's any way for us to know how much respect a manager commands amongst his players, but I agree with Bill James that it is indispensable to the manager's success or failure. In this case, at least, intangibles matter.

[Steven Rubio would like to add, as bitterly as possible, that yesterday's trades close the book on whether or not Brian Sabean is an idiot.]

[Chip R]

I wonder if Dusty is possibly the modern day Billy Martin without Billy's demons and his manic. Billy would come into a town, have everyone playing Billy Ball, he'd blow some pitchers arms out, get into a fight and leave town. But he went to the postseason everywhere he went to the post season except for TEX. Maybe Big Dust is like that.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by Chip R

I wonder if Dusty is possibly the modern day Billy Martin without Billy's demons and his manic. Billy would come into a town, have everyone playing Billy Ball, he'd blow some pitchers arms out, get into a fight and leave town. But he went to the postseason everywhere he went to the post season except for TEX. Maybe Big Dust is like that.

No one beats Billy and his henchman Art Fowler. Together they must have decided over cocktails one night to see what kind of abuse a pitchers arm could take, and they both followed through with their plan.

Art got it started himself when he coached the 1964 Angels.

AL Innings Pitched 1964

INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Dean Chance               278         23        7
2    Gary Peters               274         27        3
3    Jim Bouton                271         25        3
4    Camilo Pascual            267         30        6
5    Claude Osteen             257         24        5
6    Dave Wickersham           254         28        3
7    Milt Pappas               252         25        5
8    Whitey Ford               245         35        4
9    Al Downing                244         23        3
10   Jim Kaat                  243         25        6

Dean Chance was 23 and led the league in Innings Pitched; he later topped that total as a Twin in 67 and 68, but he would never have as good a year as he had in 1964.

Next Art landed in Minnesota as Martins first pitching coach.

1969 IP leaders

INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Denny McLain              325         25       13
2    Mel Stottlemyre           303         27       15
3    Mike Cuellar              291         32        9
4    Sam McDowell              285         26        9
5    Mickey Lolich             281         28        7
6    Fritz Peterson            272         27        7
7    Dave McNally              269         26        2
8    Jim Perry                 262         33        4
9    Dave Boswell              256         24        1
10   Andy Messersmith          250         23        2

Slotted in 39 is Dave Boswell, most famous for duking it out with Martin, Boswell also was the ace of the division winning Twins. He also never topped the amount of work he logged in 1969, and threw only 69 innings the next year, and never topped that again.

On to Detroit in 1971, an event that I was lucky enough to watch first hand.

True, this was the era that starters threw a deadball amount of innings; Fowler and Martin were in the midst of it and often were the ones that led the way.

1971
INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Mickey Lolich             376         30       16
2    Wilbur Wood               334         29       10
3    Vida Blue                 312         21       13
4    Mike Cuellar              292         34       10
T5   Tom Bradley               286         24       -4
T5   Joe Coleman               286         24        5
T7   Pat Dobson                282         29        8
T7   Jim Palmer                282         25       10
9    Bert Blyleven             278.1       20        6
T10  Clyde Wright              277         30        0
T10  Andy Messersmith          277         25        3

1972
INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Wilbur Wood               376         30        7
2    Gaylord Perry             342.2       33       18
3    Mickey Lolich             327         31       12
4    Catfish Hunter            295         26        6
5    Bert Blyleven             287.1       21        1
6    Nolan Ryan                284         25        9
7    Joe Coleman               280         25       -2
8    Jim Palmer                274.1       26        8
9    Pat Dobson                268         30        3
10   Ken Holtzman              265         26        6

1973
INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Wilbur Wood               359         31        6
2    Gaylord Perry             344         34       16
3    Nolan Ryan                326         26       14
4    Bert Blyleven             325         22       12
5    Bill Singer               316         29        6
6    Jim Colborn               314         27       11
7    Mickey Lolich             309         32        4
8    Ken Holtzman              297         27        3
9    Jim Palmer                296.1       27        7
10   Joe Coleman               288         26        0

Three straight 300-inning seasons for Lolich and three straight 280 seasons for Coleman, just to keep the things straight they did it again after Art left, likely because old habits are hard to avoid, by 1975 both starters were on the fast track to retirement, Lolich 34 and Coleman only 28.

After the Tigers tired of Martin’s act he and Fowler moved on to Texas

The 328 innings pitched by Jenkins in 1974 was a career high, also logging a career high for the Texas club that season was Jim Bibby, who logged 260 plus innings and didn’t top 200 again until 1980.

INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Nolan Ryan                332.2       27       12
2    Ferguson Jenkins          328.1       30       15
3    Gaylord Perry             322.1       35       16
4    Wilbur Wood               320         32        8
5    Catfish Hunter            318         28        9
6    Luis Tiant                311.1       33       12
7    Mickey Lolich             308         33       13
8    Ross Grimsley             295.2       24        4
9    Steve Busby               292.1       24        7
10   Joe Coleman               286         27       -3

1975
INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Catfish Hunter            328         29       17
2    Jim Palmer                323         29       13
3    Gaylord Perry             305.2       36       13
4    Jim Kaat                  303.2       36       -1
5    Wilbur Wood               291         33        0
6    Vida Blue                 278         25        1
7    Bert Blyleven             275.2       24        9
8    Doc Medich                272.1       26        3
9    Mike Torrez               270.2       28        4
10   Ferguson Jenkins          270         31       10

After the Rangers tired of Martin, they both headed to New York. There they had less of an impact in pushing their starters to the top of the innings pitched list, except in 1979 when they gave the ball to Tommy John for 276 innings… the same Tommy John whose arm had been reattached just a few seasons earlier.

All in all the Yankees in that span had three starters who achieved their lifetime high in innings pitched, Ed Figueroa, Tommy John and Ron Guidry.

After that the duo was on to Oakland, where they would break arms as well as records.

Oakland Athletics from 1980 to 1982

INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Rick Langford             290         28       20
2    Mike Norris               284.1       25       16
3    Larry Gura                283.1       32        7
4    Dennis Leonard            280.1       29        0
5    Tommy John                265.1       37        7
6    Moose Haas                252.1       24        6
7    Scott McGregor            252         26        3
8    Mike Flanagan             251.1       28        3
T9   Steve Stone               250.2       32        0
T9   Jim Clancy                250.2       24        7

INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Dennis Leonard            201.2       30        3
2    Jack Morris               198         26        9
3    Rick Langford             195.1       29       13
4    Steve McCatty             185.2       27       11
5    Dave Stieb                183.2       23        5
6    Dennis Martinez           179         26        4
7    Mike Norris               172.2       26        7
8    Larry Gura                172.1       33        7
9    Milt Wilcox               166.1       31        3
10   Geoff Zahn                161.1       35        3

INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Dave Stieb                288.1       24       12
2    Jim Clancy                266.2       26        3
3    Jack Morris               266.1       27       10
4    Mike Caldwell             258         33        5
5    Dennis Martinez           252         27        2
6    Luis Leal                 249.2       25        3
7    Larry Gura                248         34        1
8    Floyd Bannister           247         27       -2
9    Dan Petry                 246         23        1
10   Len Barker                244.2       26        4

36 complete games by the 1980 innings leaders and all in all 5 Oakland starters with over 210 innings pitched. Also of note NINTY FOUR complete games by A’s pitchers in 1980, that’s good for first place since World War Two. The five starters (Brian Kingman, Mike Norris, Rick Langford, Matt Keough and Steve McCatty) never exceeded their performance innings wise again, and all five were out of the game by the late 80’s.

Once those arms were used up it was back to New York for two brief appearances in 1983 and 1988.

Again a Yankee shows up in the top ten

INNINGS PITCHED                 IP       AGE      CG
1    Jack Morris               293.2       28       12
2    Dave Stieb                278         25        7
3    Dan Petry                 266.1       24        1
4    LaMarr Hoyt               260.2       28        4
5    Scott McGregor            260         29        5
6    Charlie Hough             252         35        4
7    Ron Guidry                250.1       32       15
8    Rick Sutcliffe            243.1       27        3
9    John Tudor                242         29        0
10   Rich Dotson               240         24        1

Plus Shane Rawley hit his career high in innings pitched, this feat helped keep Fowlers and Martin’s record intact.

Back again in 1988 Fowler coached a staff that for he first time in his career had not one starter with at least 200 innings pitched (Rick Rhoden led the team with 197