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Kingspoint
02-12-2011, 02:45 PM
From Rotoworld via San Diego Tribune w/ Rotoworld comments:

Aaron Harang has admitted that his infamous four-inning relief outing back in May of 2008 forced him to alter his mechanics due to fatigue and he's never been able to recapture them.

"What it did," said Harang, "is fatigue me beyond the point of recovery. I started to change my arm angle to compensate for the fatigue and that’s when my forearm started to bother me." Many have long suspected that manager Dusty Baker's nonchalant use of Harang has led to the right-hander's downfall. The stats don't lie, as Harang was coming off back-to-back 16-win, 200-strikeout seasons and held a 3.50 ERA before the relief appearance. If he's able to reclaim his mechanics in a more hospitable environment in San Diego and PETCO Park, we could see a big bounce-back year.

Now will all of the yahoo's who have supported Dusty Baker and despite of all the evidence to the contrary still thinks that he doesn't destroy pitchers arms look at this and see that Dusty Baker, among many other reasons, is not a good Major League Manager.

We won last year, IN SPITE OF, Dusty Baker.

We'll win again this year, IN SPITE OF, Dusty Baker, because we're loaded with talent.

If there's anyone who could destroy this mammoth amount of good young pitching that the REDS have, it's Dusty Baker. He already did his number on Nick Masset and Francisco Cordero last year by throwing them both out there more than any other pitchers in baseball.

Thank goodness Walt Jockety is making the decisions for Dusty and pulling players, such as Mike Leake, when they get to the point to where they need to be shut down. Baker's dangerous, really dangerous.

All of this could be moot, though, if the REDS put their pitchers on the same training regimens that the Atlanta Braves have had their pitchers on the last 20 years. Under those training conditions, their arms would be able to handle whatever Dusty Baker does with their arms.

In a way, you can't blame Dusty, as he's just a country hick who hasn't got an ounce of intelligence between his ears, and hasn't ever noticed that the game has changed since when he was 18 years old and pitchers could throw for 250-300 innings, no problem. It doesn't take much of an IQ to figure out that you shouldn't bat a .300 OBP player in leadoff every night.

Pray that these young pitchers are going to survive these years under Dusty Baker.

mroby85
02-12-2011, 03:04 PM
Aaron Harang is an excuse maker, and i'm glad he's gone. Before his arm he always cried about run support, but if you watched him pitch if they would score 5 he gave up 6, and when they would score 2 he would give up 3, etc. He's a loser, just like Arroyo is a winner. I love how pitchers can go on 3 days rest in the playoffs all the time, but Harang is using it as an excuse for why he sucks 3 years later. I don't recall the exact numbers, but I seem to remember him getting torched in that same series before being brought back out of the bullpen. How many innings did he pitch the game he started, because im thinking he got knocked out fairly early unless im mistaken.

Parliament
02-12-2011, 03:26 PM
Dusty Baker has turned this team into a winner

Mutaman
02-12-2011, 03:46 PM
Aaron- Don't let the door hit you on the way out. At least his mechanics were good enough to keep cashing those big checks that he wasn't earning over the years.

Mutaman
02-12-2011, 03:48 PM
Before his arm he always cried about run support, but if you watched him pitch if they would score 5 he gave up 6, and when they would score 2 he would give up 3, etc. He's a loser, just like Arroyo is a winner. .

Bingo! Right on the money.

Quatitos
02-12-2011, 04:06 PM
Now will all of the yahoo's who have supported Dusty Baker and despite of all the evidence to the contrary still thinks that he doesn't destroy pitchers arms look at this and see that Dusty Baker, among many other reasons, is not a good Major League Manager.


The story doesn't add up. Sure you can use that for why Harang was bad the rest of that year, even though, in September that year he posted a 3.07 ERA in 6 starts, after he had gotten some rest on the DL. And What about the next 2 years? Was he still too tired to use his previous mechanics? Or maybe last year he was off balance without his appendix :)

I would put more blame on Aaron for this, since he could have said something about it and I'm sure they would have skipped him for a start or two. He has proven that he is willing to push himself. On May 25, 2009 when there was the two or three hour rain delay and Aaron decided to come back into the game for another inning. He probably threw atleast an extra 100 or so pitches keeping himself loose during the delay and it was him pushing Dusty to let him stay in to qualify for the win. If your going to do stupid stuff like that you don't get to blame other people because you aren't willing to admit you are too tired to take the ball.

AintlifeGrande
02-12-2011, 04:09 PM
Bingo! Right on the money.



Nice reply.Harang was going downhill well before the bullpen game in San Diego.Dusty did a great job managing the SP last season.I wish we could put this Dusty arm killer myth to rest.Any player in that clubhouse would go to war for Dusty.This thread feels like it was started by a bitter Cubs fan,or just a Cards fan hating on Baker.

757690
02-12-2011, 04:18 PM
Over 30 starting pitchers in the NL alone have made emergency relief appearances since Harang's in 2008, including some TOR guys. Most of them are fine. If Harang noticed his mechanics were messed up, he should have said something. He's had over two years to fix it, even if it was caused by that outing.

I rarely buy that one outing or even one stretch of games ruined a pitcher. It usually is a combination of reasons, the most obvious one... throwing a ball 90 MPH is an unnatural act that causes damage to every arm.

Josh
02-12-2011, 04:28 PM
Never cared much for Harang (Beetlejuice what my wife calls him) I was so happy when he didnt resign I think our younger staff has alot more to offer of I at least hope so.

Cuban_Missile
02-12-2011, 05:01 PM
I couldn't be happier with Harang leaving. He was never happy always blamed someone else until the bitter end. So I am just glad that we can all dust our hands of Harang and let him walk away.

Jerry Narron
02-12-2011, 07:06 PM
Harang has done some classy things in the community, but I question why he would choose to bring this topic back to the front almost three years after it happened.

I'm looking forward to seeing how he'll do in a pitchers park like San Diego this year.

5DOLLAR-BLEACHERBUM
02-12-2011, 09:12 PM
Sounds to me like he wants to give the fans in San Diego some false confidence about him returning to form. Serves them right, we all had that same feeling the last couple years, and just as we did they will learn the hard way.

Kingspoint
02-12-2011, 09:31 PM
The story doesn't add up. Sure you can use that for why Harang was bad the rest of that year, even though, in September that year he posted a 3.07 ERA in 6 starts, after he had gotten some rest on the DL. And What about the next 2 years? Was he still too tired to use his previous mechanics? Or maybe last year he was off balance without his appendix :)

I would put more blame on Aaron for this, since he could have said something about it and I'm sure they would have skipped him for a start or two. He has proven that he is willing to push himself. On May 25, 2009 when there was the two or three hour rain delay and Aaron decided to come back into the game for another inning. He probably threw atleast an extra 100 or so pitches keeping himself loose during the delay and it was him pushing Dusty to let him stay in to qualify for the win. If your going to do stupid stuff like that you don't get to blame other people because you aren't willing to admit you are too tired to take the ball.

Personally, I believe Aaron's ego was too huge. He refused to not throw pitches that could be jacked for extra-base hits. He always thought that it was just luck or something.

signalhome
02-12-2011, 09:48 PM
There's no denying that Dusty has a history of ruining arms. Mark Prior says hello.

mroby85
02-12-2011, 11:48 PM
There's no denying that Dusty has a history of ruining arms. Mark Prior says hello.

Does Jim Riggleman? Strasburg says hello
Jerry Manuel? Johan Santana says hello
Joe Girardi? AJ Burnett says hello
Cecil Cooper? Roy Oswalt says hello
Tony Larussa? Chris Carpenter says hello
The list could go on and on with pitchers. The bottom line is pitchers are players that tend to have serious injuries at times. You couldn't possibly baby someone more than the Nationals did Strasburg and he still ended up needing TJ surgery. It's ridiculous in my opinion the amount of flack that Dusty gets. Prior and Wood are the reasons that he always gets the flack, but what about Zambrano? If I remember correctly Wood had already been injured before Dusty got there? What major injuries took place in San Francisco while he was there?

kfm
02-13-2011, 12:42 AM
Does Jim Riggleman? Strasburg says hello
Jerry Manuel? Johan Santana says hello
Joe Girardi? AJ Burnett says hello
Cecil Cooper? Roy Oswalt says hello
Tony Larussa? Chris Carpenter says hello
The list could go on and on with pitchers. The bottom line is pitchers are players that tend to have serious injuries at times. You couldn't possibly baby someone more than the Nationals did Strasburg and he still ended up needing TJ surgery. It's ridiculous in my opinion the amount of flack that Dusty gets. Prior and Wood are the reasons that he always gets the flack, but what about Zambrano? If I remember correctly Wood had already been injured before Dusty got there? What major injuries took place in San Francisco while he was there?

You forgot Kerry Woods for Jim Riggleman. After all that was his major league manager when he first experienced arm problems.

webbbj
02-13-2011, 12:50 AM
was that the game where there was a rain delay and harang came back in? I remember that being some excuse or reason that harang was never the same after that appearance.

signalhome
02-13-2011, 01:06 AM
Does Jim Riggleman? Strasburg says hello
Jerry Manuel? Johan Santana says hello
Joe Girardi? AJ Burnett says hello
Cecil Cooper? Roy Oswalt says hello
Tony Larussa? Chris Carpenter says hello
The list could go on and on with pitchers. The bottom line is pitchers are players that tend to have serious injuries at times. You couldn't possibly baby someone more than the Nationals did Strasburg and he still ended up needing TJ surgery. It's ridiculous in my opinion the amount of flack that Dusty gets. Prior and Wood are the reasons that he always gets the flack, but what about Zambrano? If I remember correctly Wood had already been injured before Dusty got there? What major injuries took place in San Francisco while he was there?

First off, I'm not sure why you took something I said in a light-hearted manner ("Mark Prior says hello") and used it to mock me. Very disrespectful. I simply presented something that is supported by considerable evidence, and you took it as a jab at you or something. I wasn't being demeaning to anyone, so I'm not sure why you took it to task to act in a condescending fashion toward me.

You asked for it. Read http://battleforohio.com/2009/08/04/dusty-baker-ruining-pitchers-since-1993/. Found that after a quick google search. It details, in length, the damage he did in San Francisco and Chicago. No major injuries in San Fran, but he obviously wore his pitchers down. As I stated, Dusty has a well-chronicled past of wearing down pitchers. They may not always result in injury, but they have often resulted in very poor performance in the following years.

With your list intended to mock me, you're trying to make the argument that because some pitchers' injuries aren't due to overuse, none of them are. I think we both know this to not be true. Some injuries just happen and nothing can be done about that. If I remember correctly, one of Prior's injuries was a line-drive comebacker that drilled him in the elbow; fluke occurrence. However, it is somewhat irresponsible to just say that all injuries are flukes. The pitching motion in baseball is not a natural motion (as opposed to softball, which features a natural motion that puts very little wear-and-tear on the arm). You do it enough, you're gonna have consequences. Here is a research article to back up what I'm saying: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1658

Regarding Mark Prior, check out this article http://redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com/2007/10/just-say-noto-dusty.html. Prior threw more pitches in his rookie year at age 22 than Aaron Harang ever had. From the article: "Modern medicine has removed some of the fog over pitching injuries and revealed that one of the quickest ways to ruin a young pitcher is to overwork him. It cannot be definitely said that Baker caused Prior to get injured, but given what we know about young pitchers and heavy workloads, he certainly put Prior at a substantially higher risk of injury." There is no way of knowing 100% that Dusty's overuse of Prior led to his injury, but there is no doubting Baker put Prior at a very high chance of being injured. That is poor managing, I am sorry. I know Dusty wanted to win, but winning at the expense of your best young pitcher's future is not worth it.

To sum up my entire novel of a post in one tidy paragraph, people far smarter than you or I (Dr. James Andrews, Dr. Mike Marshall, and Dr. Frank Jobe) say that a heavy workload on a young pitcher is a very bad idea. Dusty has always used his young pitchers much more frequently than modern medicine says is appropriate. His young pitchers have almost always suffered declines in production after being overused. Based on that, i think the criticisms of Dusty are pretty reasonable.

757690
02-13-2011, 04:07 AM
Nice research SignalHome. But still a lot of problems with your argument.


You asked for it. Read http://battleforohio.com/2009/08/04/...rs-since-1993/. Found that after a quick google search. It details, in length, the damage he did in San Francisco and Chicago. No major injuries in San Fran, but he obviously wore his pitchers down. As I stated, Dusty has a well-chronicled past of wearing down pitchers. They may not always result in injury, but they have often resulted in very poor performance in the following years.

This article is riddled with errors and really can't be taken seriously.

If you read the Baseball Prospectus article you also quoted, you will see that the "injury nexus" is for pitchers up to age 24.


The so-called injury nexus does appear to be a real phenomenon, but it occurs before the age of 23, a younger age than some previous studies have suggested.

All of the pitchers that the article refers to when Dusty was with the Giants were at least 24, with most of them closer to, or over 30. So all those examples really should not have been used. It is very silly to blame Baker's use of Mark Leiter when he was 32, for Mark Leiter having a bad year the next year when he was 33.

I will agree that Dusty overused Wood, Prior and Zambrano in 2002. But Prior is really the only one that you can really claim that Dusty might have 'ruined." But in Dusty's defense, he was trying to win a championship for a team that had gone nearly a century without one. If the Cubs had gone to the World Series, I think no one would have cared about Mark Prior's career... well except for Mark Prior. It wasn't just putting a young pitcher's career at risk in order to win, it was in order to help heal a city's century long wounds.

Another point that you are missing is that innings pitched is actually one of the least important factors in predicting a pitcher's injury chance. The biggest one is mechanics. That is why no one really blames Baker for Wood's injuries, since everyone was expecting him to break down, given his mechanics. And it is one reason why Zambrano lasted much longer before getting injured. Every pitcher has different threshold for how many pitches and innings they can handle.

So basically, during Baker's 17 year managerial career, he had one season of overusing young pitchers, and has had one young pitcher breakdown. I really don't see that has having a history of ruining pitchers.

double21d
02-13-2011, 06:57 AM
I'm a Harang fan. But the idea that he was ruined because of Dusty Baker seems a bit silly. Certainly Harang has to play a role in this as well. If he knew that his arm was such a concern why did he come back out after a lengthy rain delay the following year just to pick up a win? That didn't exactly help him either.

DocRed
02-13-2011, 09:52 AM
I don't buy it....ridiculous.

TheBigLebowski
02-13-2011, 09:53 AM
This is a crappy, crappy internet poast.

naptown
02-13-2011, 10:19 AM
A couple of things here. I was not a big Baker fan as a manager (loved him as a player) when Dusty first arrived. A great coach/manager always adjusts their philosophy around the talent on their ball club. Not try to adjust the talent to a coach's philosophy. Dusty was too entrenched into his way of doing things when he first arrived.

I am not sure if or how much Walt has attributed to this, but over the last two seasons I have seen a big change in Baker's approach. Dusty has done a great job adjusting to the talent on his team. Having confidence and sticking with younger players. Managing the pitching staff. Or at least being smart enough to let his pitching coach do his job. Etc. In Baker's case, it appears you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Also, with today's "pitch count" philosophy strongly in place, over using pitchers is almost impossible. And innings pitched is not nearly as indicative of a pitchers use as pitch count.

Pitchers like Arroyo and Leake typically throw less pitches per inning than strike out guys like Cueto and Volquez. It takes a minimum of 9 pitches to strike out the side. You can get the same 3 outs on 3 pitches being crafty. Way more often you will see the crafty pitchers have those 8 to 10 pitch innings than you will with your power pitchers. And how many of those 8 to 10 pitch innings you get in a game typically determines if your starter is going 6 innings or 8 innings.

mroby85
02-13-2011, 12:10 PM
First off, I'm not sure why you took something I said in a light-hearted manner ("Mark Prior says hello") and used it to mock me. Very disrespectful. I simply presented something that is supported by considerable evidence, and you took it as a jab at you or something. I wasn't being demeaning to anyone, so I'm not sure why you took it to task to act in a condescending fashion toward me.

You asked for it. Read http://battleforohio.com/2009/08/04/dusty-baker-ruining-pitchers-since-1993/. Found that after a quick google search. It details, in length, the damage he did in San Francisco and Chicago. No major injuries in San Fran, but he obviously wore his pitchers down. As I stated, Dusty has a well-chronicled past of wearing down pitchers. They may not always result in injury, but they have often resulted in very poor performance in the following years.

With your list intended to mock me, you're trying to make the argument that because some pitchers' injuries aren't due to overuse, none of them are. I think we both know this to not be true. Some injuries just happen and nothing can be done about that. If I remember correctly, one of Prior's injuries was a line-drive comebacker that drilled him in the elbow; fluke occurrence. However, it is somewhat irresponsible to just say that all injuries are flukes. The pitching motion in baseball is not a natural motion (as opposed to softball, which features a natural motion that puts very little wear-and-tear on the arm). You do it enough, you're gonna have consequences. Here is a research article to back up what I'm saying: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1658

Regarding Mark Prior, check out this article http://redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com/2007/10/just-say-noto-dusty.html. Prior threw more pitches in his rookie year at age 22 than Aaron Harang ever had. From the article: "Modern medicine has removed some of the fog over pitching injuries and revealed that one of the quickest ways to ruin a young pitcher is to overwork him. It cannot be definitely said that Baker caused Prior to get injured, but given what we know about young pitchers and heavy workloads, he certainly put Prior at a substantially higher risk of injury." There is no way of knowing 100% that Dusty's overuse of Prior led to his injury, but there is no doubting Baker put Prior at a very high chance of being injured. That is poor managing, I am sorry. I know Dusty wanted to win, but winning at the expense of your best young pitcher's future is not worth it.

To sum up my entire novel of a post in one tidy paragraph, people far smarter than you or I (Dr. James Andrews, Dr. Mike Marshall, and Dr. Frank Jobe) say that a heavy workload on a young pitcher is a very bad idea. Dusty has always used his young pitchers much more frequently than modern medicine says is appropriate. His young pitchers have almost always suffered declines in production after being overused. Based on that, i think the criticisms of Dusty are pretty reasonable.

I wasn't meaning to be demeaning towards you with all the examples, I was just trying to point out there are several pitchers who are injured not under Dusty Baker. I think Dusty takes way to much flack for this. I also wasn't taking it as a jab towards me, I was taking it as a jab towards Dusty, and I was just defending him in response.
Also, can you really specifically blame these injuries on him if "freak injuries" happen to pitchers all the time? Just like Wood having a history with injuries before Dusty even got there. I've also read in the past that the Cubs organization gave him the okay on Prior, telling him to do what they needed to do in order to win. Again though, wasn't trying to be disrespectful, I was just trying to make a point that it's not just Dusty, but he constantly takes blame for it. I don't think he gets the respect around here he deserves. He's won manager of the year with 2 different teams, and was within 1 vote (and shouldve won it) this year, with a third team. I don't always agree with his decisions, but you can't argue with the results he has consistently produced as a manager. That article claims he "only won because of a juiced up Barry Bonds." Right, because no one else was juicing at all in that era. Also, he won in Chicago where no one else has been very successful.

One last thing, that article referred to Edinson Volquez as an arm he "ruined" and I watched that season, and didn't really object to any of the pitch counts/innings pitched that Volquez had. The same people who constantly gripe about him injuring arms are the same ones that would go nuts if a pitcher was rolling, and he pulled them in the 6th inning and the bullpen blew the game.

Quatitos
02-13-2011, 01:28 PM
First off, I'm not sure why you took something I said in a light-hearted manner ("Mark Prior says hello") and used it to mock me. Very disrespectful. I simply presented something that is supported by considerable evidence, and you took it as a jab at you or something. I wasn't being demeaning to anyone, so I'm not sure why you took it to task to act in a condescending fashion toward me.

I mean ignore the fact you presented your opinion as fact and you did demean the abilities of Dusty Baker as a manager so I don't know how you can deny that. A lot of people don't like others pushing their opinion out as a fact, so I would imagine that is why you were responded to that way.


You asked for it. Read http://battleforohio.com/2009/08/04/dusty-baker-ruining-pitchers-since-1993/. Found that after a quick google search. It details, in length, the damage he did in San Francisco and Chicago. No major injuries in San Fran, but he obviously wore his pitchers down. As I stated, Dusty has a well-chronicled past of wearing down pitchers. They may not always result in injury, but they have often resulted in very poor performance in the following years.

Ok, news flash, just because you can find it on google does not make it a credible article. There are so many errors in there it is ridiculous, such as presenting a year as a pitcher's rookie year, when his rookie year was 4 years earlier, this was done multiple times. Its intersting to note that a lot of the pitchers referenced in San Fran would not end up on the Verducci Effect list if it was made back then(although the Verducci Effect has questionable evidence, it is a decent rule of thumb). Honestly the San Fran part of that list is complete garbage since the facts are so misinterpretted, ignored, or completely wrong that it shouldn't be taken seriously at all. If you really want I can refute the list year by year but I doubt you would like me to do that.

For Chicago, Dusty's first season there, Kerry Wood threw less innings than the year before, he was already under a heavy load before Dusty got there (but the end result is still dusty's fault :rolleyes:). For Prior, he was pushed by the whole organization and was in the majors in his first professional season and pitched a combined 167.2 innings. The next season, with Dusty at the helm he pitched 211.1, an increase of 43.2 innings which if you like the Verducci effect is a flag, but the increase is not too far over the 30 IP increase for the effect. The problems with Prior probably had more to do with his high pitch counts per game more so than the IP increases. In 2002 Prior averaged 107 Pit/GS and in 2003 he averaged 113 Pit/GS. In 2002 Prior's max was 135 and in 2003 his max was 133. So in both 2002 and 2003 Prior was pushed to a lot of pitches per game for such a young guy. I'll ignore Zambrano since he did just fine. So before Dusty got there, both Wood and Prior were on their way to heavy workloads. Fun fact, the only coach that Dusty was not allowed to replace when he was hired on was Larry Rothschild who was the Cubs pitching coach from 2002 to 2010. I'm surprised more blame does not fall on him since under him Wood was pushed to his first 210+ IP season.

Paul Daugherty also has his take on the Dusty Bake "Arm Killer" title http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100524/COL03/305240089/Homer-Bailey-Reds-fans-critical-of-Dusty-Baker-can-shut-up-


With your list intended to mock me, you're trying to make the argument that because some pitchers' injuries aren't due to overuse, none of them are. I think we both know this to not be true. Some injuries just happen and nothing can be done about that. If I remember correctly, one of Prior's injuries was a line-drive comebacker that drilled him in the elbow; fluke occurrence. However, it is somewhat irresponsible to just say that all injuries are flukes. The pitching motion in baseball is not a natural motion (as opposed to softball, which features a natural motion that puts very little wear-and-tear on the arm). You do it enough, you're gonna have consequences. Here is a research article to back up what I'm saying: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1658


I honestly don't know what you are trying to prove here unless you are trying to say that no matter what Dusty did Wood and Prior would have gotten hurt anyways. That research shows that young pitchers roughly <24 years of age are at an increased risk of injury. So no matter who was managing them and how they were handled, they have an increased risk of injury anyways. That is what the statistical results actually show.

The discussion at the end of the article does mention overuse, it also mentions that it is hard to pinpoint when a pitcher is fatigued and where overuse starts to kick in. It suggests that broad parameters such as pitch counts and velocity tracking, but really does not prove your point very much.


Regarding Mark Prior, check out this article http://redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com/2007/10/just-say-noto-dusty.html. Prior threw more pitches in his rookie year at age 22 than Aaron Harang ever had. From the article: "Modern medicine has removed some of the fog over pitching injuries and revealed that one of the quickest ways to ruin a young pitcher is to overwork him. It cannot be definitely said that Baker caused Prior to get injured, but given what we know about young pitchers and heavy workloads, he certainly put Prior at a substantially higher risk of injury." There is no way of knowing 100% that Dusty's overuse of Prior led to his injury, but there is no doubting Baker put Prior at a very high chance of being injured. That is poor managing, I am sorry. I know Dusty wanted to win, but winning at the expense of your best young pitcher's future is not worth it.

Prior's rookie year was in 2002 btw, and he was being pushed by the whole organization, not just Dusty. Prior, just by being young was at a high risk of injury anyways, and it is hard to say who's orders it was that allowed Prior to pitch so far into games, be it upper management, the pitching coach, Dusty, or others. Obviously it is Dusty who takes the pitchers out of games, but the pitching coach and management can set the policies regarding pitch counts.


To sum up my entire novel of a post in one tidy paragraph, people far smarter than you or I (Dr. James Andrews, Dr. Mike Marshall, and Dr. Frank Jobe) say that a heavy workload on a young pitcher is a very bad idea. Dusty has always used his young pitchers much more frequently than modern medicine says is appropriate. His young pitchers have almost always suffered declines in production after being overused. Based on that, i think the criticisms of Dusty are pretty reasonable.You have failed to actually back this up with good facts and the articles you have listed have either hurt your point or not really backed it up at all. You have presented many pitchers who were in fact not young and not really overused along with a handful of young pitchers who's overuse could easily be attributed to others along with Baker.

naptown
02-13-2011, 01:51 PM
I honestly don't know what you are trying to prove here unless you are trying to say that no matter what Dusty did Wood and Prior would have gotten hurt anyways. That research shows that young pitchers roughly <24 years of age are at an increased risk of injury. So no matter who was managing them and how they were handled, they have an increased risk of injury anyways. That is what the statistical results actually show.

The discussion at the end of the article does mention overuse, it also mentions that it is hard to pinpoint when a pitcher is fatigued and where overuse starts to kick in. It suggests that broad parameters such as pitch counts and velocity tracking, but really does not prove your point very much.

I didnt read the article but you pointed out something that should be common sense. You mentioned young pitchers in their early 20's having an increased risk of injury. That is the age range where you typically find out if a pitcher's body can take the abuse of being a long term big league pitcher.

As talented as some folks may be, unfortunately their bodies just were not constructed to take the pounding. It is no ones fault. If being a big league pitcher was easy, mentally or physically, everyone could do it.

DirtyBaker
02-13-2011, 02:11 PM
Does anyone here even remember that game? It's no surprise Harang is washed up to those who unfortunately heard/saw it. I remember threads on sundeck and ORG citing the multiple pitching blunders Dusty made that day which ultimately cost Harang his arm.

Harang goes 4 IP, 63 pitches total on that Sunday after a Thursday where he threw 103 pitches. 63 pitches off 2 days rest after a 100+ pitch start. Yeah yeah.... it was an 18 inning affair, but Dusty's decisions that day put them in that situation (keeping Cordero in too long and not using Bray early enough in a situation that called for a lefty).

Anyway, Reds had a day off the next Monday so what they should have done was bring Cueto out in the 13th inning. He had had a day more rest than Harang at that particular time, and Harang could have started that Tuesday instead, having 4 days rest instead of 2. I do not believe Belisle was available that afternoon, otherwise he would have been the best option having pitched Tuesday.

gedred69
02-13-2011, 02:17 PM
I remember a Harang that was a power pitcher among league leaders in SO's. He threw a nasty hard slider. I had the sense that he tried to re-invent himself as to not throwing as hard, depending on location long before the infamous relief appearance. I am inclined to think his loss of velocity had more impact on his decline. A hard slider is punishment to the arm, Jose Rio comes to mind......

Vottomatic
02-13-2011, 04:02 PM
Some pitchers are built to be like Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. Others are built to be Mark Prior's and Strasburg's.

It happens. No rhyme or reason.

Josh
02-13-2011, 04:11 PM
Some pitchers are built to be like Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. Others are built to be Mark Prior's and Strasburg's.

It happens. No rhyme or reason.

I agree with ^^^

DirtyBaker
02-13-2011, 04:14 PM
Some pitchers are built to be like Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. Others are built to be Mark Prior's and Strasburg's.

It happens. No rhyme or reason.

We're in agreement up to what I put in bold. There are plenty of cases where a sudden increase in workload takes its toll on the body. Prior's 22 year old arm pitched 211 innings against his 167 the year before, Volquez injury on a year he pitched in the world baseball classic, and Harang 60+, 4 IP game off of short rest.

Do you really think all injuries are a biological/mechanical crapshoot and fatigue has nothing to do with this?

signalhome
02-13-2011, 04:55 PM
Nice research SignalHome. But still a lot of problems with your argument.



This article is riddled with errors and really can't be taken seriously.

If you read the Baseball Prospectus article you also quoted, you will see that the "injury nexus" is for pitchers up to age 24.



All of the pitchers that the article refers to when Dusty was with the Giants were at least 24, with most of them closer to, or over 30. So all those examples really should not have been used. It is very silly to blame Baker's use of Mark Leiter when he was 32, for Mark Leiter having a bad year the next year when he was 33.

I will agree that Dusty overused Wood, Prior and Zambrano in 2002. But Prior is really the only one that you can really claim that Dusty might have 'ruined." But in Dusty's defense, he was trying to win a championship for a team that had gone nearly a century without one. If the Cubs had gone to the World Series, I think no one would have cared about Mark Prior's career... well except for Mark Prior. It wasn't just putting a young pitcher's career at risk in order to win, it was in order to help heal a city's century long wounds.

Another point that you are missing is that innings pitched is actually one of the least important factors in predicting a pitcher's injury chance. The biggest one is mechanics. That is why no one really blames Baker for Wood's injuries, since everyone was expecting him to break down, given his mechanics. And it is one reason why Zambrano lasted much longer before getting injured. Every pitcher has different threshold for how many pitches and innings they can handle.

So basically, during Baker's 17 year managerial career, he had one season of overusing young pitchers, and has had one young pitcher breakdown. I really don't see that has having a history of ruining pitchers.

Thanks for the response, all very good points. I did a poor job of clarifying a few things, so that's my fault.

I agree that the article is very poorly written and has quite a few errors in it. I was mostly just using it to show how Dusty uses his pitchers more than the average manager; instead I will use a different article from a better site, an article that doesn't draw baseless conclusions like that article does on occasion. And I absolutely agree that innings pitched is a poor barometer, so instead we should use pitch counts. Baker has let his pitcher go over 122 pitches 88 times since 2000, more than any other manager in baseball (reference: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/dusty-baker-and-pitch-counts/). 10% of his pitchers' starts go over 120 pitches. This article also makes a good point about how the 17 starters he has had since 2000 is a poor sample size, a point I concede.

I admit I poorly worded my first post. Instead of saying "ruining arms", I should have said "leaving his pitchers out there longer than anyone else". The previous statement is something a shock jock like Colin Cowherd would say, which is quite frankly below any of us. For that I apologize. However, I do agree with the Hardball Times article I posted when it says that Baker's lack of caution with high-pitch outings is disconcerting. I never bought that he ruined Harang's career with one bullpen appearance, and my statement was never meant to convey that. I just have my worries about Baker doing with Chapman (hah, if he were actually starting), Bailey (were Bailey to pitch like we all know he is able), or Cueto what he did with Prior.

As for the age presented by Baseball Prospectus, yeah, I read that. I wasn't really using that as a comparison with the previous article (as stated, I only used the previous article to show an increased workload on his pitchers, something I should have stated). However, as with everything in medicine, tacking an age onto something isn't black-and-white. It can sway in either direction as much as three years. A 20-year-old could be perfectly fine, while another guy who is 26-years-old could still be developing in ways that makes it unhealthy for him to pitch an absurd number of innings. Based on that, there may be reason to worry about overuse of our young pitchers who are just past 23, guys like Cueto and Bailey.

Look forward to hearing back from you about this, to see if that helped sew up a few of the holes I stupidly left in my argument.

signalhome
02-13-2011, 05:16 PM
I mean ignore the fact you presented your opinion as fact and you did demean the abilities of Dusty Baker as a manager so I don't know how you can deny that. A lot of people don't like others pushing their opinion out as a fact, so I would imagine that is why you were responded to that way.



Ok, news flash, just because you can find it on google does not make it a credible article. There are so many errors in there it is ridiculous, such as presenting a year as a pitcher's rookie year, when his rookie year was 4 years earlier, this was done multiple times. Its intersting to note that a lot of the pitchers referenced in San Fran would not end up on the Verducci Effect list if it was made back then(although the Verducci Effect has questionable evidence, it is a decent rule of thumb). Honestly the San Fran part of that list is complete garbage since the facts are so misinterpretted, ignored, or completely wrong that it shouldn't be taken seriously at all. If you really want I can refute the list year by year but I doubt you would like me to do that.

For Chicago, Dusty's first season there, Kerry Wood threw less innings than the year before, he was already under a heavy load before Dusty got there (but the end result is still dusty's fault :rolleyes:). For Prior, he was pushed by the whole organization and was in the majors in his first professional season and pitched a combined 167.2 innings. The next season, with Dusty at the helm he pitched 211.1, an increase of 43.2 innings which if you like the Verducci effect is a flag, but the increase is not too far over the 30 IP increase for the effect. The problems with Prior probably had more to do with his high pitch counts per game more so than the IP increases. In 2002 Prior averaged 107 Pit/GS and in 2003 he averaged 113 Pit/GS. In 2002 Prior's max was 135 and in 2003 his max was 133. So in both 2002 and 2003 Prior was pushed to a lot of pitches per game for such a young guy. I'll ignore Zambrano since he did just fine. So before Dusty got there, both Wood and Prior were on their way to heavy workloads. Fun fact, the only coach that Dusty was not allowed to replace when he was hired on was Larry Rothschild who was the Cubs pitching coach from 2002 to 2010. I'm surprised more blame does not fall on him since under him Wood was pushed to his first 210+ IP season.

Paul Daugherty also has his take on the Dusty Bake "Arm Killer" title http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100524/COL03/305240089/Homer-Bailey-Reds-fans-critical-of-Dusty-Baker-can-shut-up-



I honestly don't know what you are trying to prove here unless you are trying to say that no matter what Dusty did Wood and Prior would have gotten hurt anyways. That research shows that young pitchers roughly <24 years of age are at an increased risk of injury. So no matter who was managing them and how they were handled, they have an increased risk of injury anyways. That is what the statistical results actually show.

The discussion at the end of the article does mention overuse, it also mentions that it is hard to pinpoint when a pitcher is fatigued and where overuse starts to kick in. It suggests that broad parameters such as pitch counts and velocity tracking, but really does not prove your point very much.


Prior's rookie year was in 2002 btw, and he was being pushed by the whole organization, not just Dusty. Prior, just by being young was at a high risk of injury anyways, and it is hard to say who's orders it was that allowed Prior to pitch so far into games, be it upper management, the pitching coach, Dusty, or others. Obviously it is Dusty who takes the pitchers out of games, but the pitching coach and management can set the policies regarding pitch counts.

You have failed to actually back this up with good facts and the articles you have listed have either hurt your point or not really backed it up at all. You have presented many pitchers who were in fact not young and not really overused along with a handful of young pitchers who's overuse could easily be attributed to others along with Baker.

Haha, a little harsh in your tone toward me, but I understand. I left a few holes in that post, didn't quite clarify what I wanted to convey with everything. Check my last post, my reply to 757690, maybe I fixed a few of those holes that bothered you.

Good catch on the Mark Prior rookie year thing, my fault. For some reason I was equating his huge 2003 season with being his rookie season.

From the Baseball Prospectus article: "The quantity and character of a pitcher's use--and the fatigue that they induce--have received more attention lately in sabermetric circles. As a pitcher fatigues, his biomechanics begin to break down. While the tipping point of fatigue can be difficult to pinpoint, it can be broadly measured by such approaches as pitch counts, velocity tracking, and even observed exertion. As Keith Woolner and Rany Jazayerli have suggested, the relationship between fatigue and injury risk is exponential rather than linear; an overworked pitcher is significantly more likely to experience a traumatic injury." That is where the article backed up my statement. The pitching motion in itself is dangerous enough on an arm, but bad mechanics make it even worse. When a pitcher fatigues (I think we can agree that high pitch counts cause fatigue), his mechanics break down, and his risk of injuries skyrockets (in an exponential fashion, not linear). The failed mechanics are the kicker; that causes a huge increase in risk injury.

Check out my reply to 757690. I linked an article from Hardball Times that shows how Dusty leaves in his starters more than any other manager in baseball. Should have used that article in the first post, for that I apologize. Also, in that post, I clarify what I should have said in my initial post instead of what I did say. I didn't mean to present my opinion as fact, it was a poor choice of words on my part.

757690
02-13-2011, 06:12 PM
Thanks for the response, all very good points. I did a poor job of clarifying a few things, so that's my fault.

I agree that the article is very poorly written and has quite a few errors in it. I was mostly just using it to show how Dusty uses his pitchers more than the average manager; instead I will use a different article from a better site, an article that doesn't draw baseless conclusions like that article does on occasion. And I absolutely agree that innings pitched is a poor barometer, so instead we should use pitch counts. Baker has let his pitcher go over 122 pitches 88 times since 2000, more than any other manager in baseball (reference: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/dusty-baker-and-pitch-counts/). 10% of his pitchers' starts go over 120 pitches. This article also makes a good point about how the 17 starters he has had since 2000 is a poor sample size, a point I concede.

I admit I poorly worded my first post. Instead of saying "ruining arms", I should have said "leaving his pitchers out there longer than anyone else". The previous statement is something a shock jock like Colin Cowherd would say, which is quite frankly below any of us. For that I apologize. However, I do agree with the Hardball Times article I posted when it says that Baker's lack of caution with high-pitch outings is disconcerting. I never bought that he ruined Harang's career with one bullpen appearance, and my statement was never meant to convey that. I just have my worries about Baker doing with Chapman (hah, if he were actually starting), Bailey (were Bailey to pitch like we all know he is able), or Cueto what he did with Prior.

As for the age presented by Baseball Prospectus, yeah, I read that. I wasn't really using that as a comparison with the previous article (as stated, I only used the previous article to show an increased workload on his pitchers, something I should have stated). However, as with everything in medicine, tacking an age onto something isn't black-and-white. It can sway in either direction as much as three years. A 20-year-old could be perfectly fine, while another guy who is 26-years-old could still be developing in ways that makes it unhealthy for him to pitch an absurd number of innings. Based on that, there may be reason to worry about overuse of our young pitchers who are just past 23, guys like Cueto and Bailey.

Look forward to hearing back from you about this, to see if that helped sew up a few of the holes I stupidly left in my argument.

Don't be so hard on yourself, lol.

I agree with your above post. There is no doubt that Dusty likes to go deeper with starting pitchers than most managers. And a decent argument can be made that his overuse of Bailey at the end of 2009 lead to his injury in 2010. But I think he gets a worse rep then he deserves over his mis-use of pitchers.

Kingspoint
02-14-2011, 12:20 AM
I am not sure if or how much Walt has attributed to this, but over the last two seasons I have seen a big change in Baker's approach.

I agree with that statement.

Moosie52
02-14-2011, 07:40 AM
Dusty made a mistake pitching Harang 4 innings in that game. I don't doubt that was part of his future problems. Harang went from being a mound monster to being an ineffective wretch. Now he's got reporters in San Diego asking him to explain the last 2.5 seasons. I think he believes what he's saying.

bounty37h
02-14-2011, 10:08 AM
Uhoh, looks like someone didnt have a Valentine this morning. He took your well used line of humor and simply added to it as an answer, no mocking needed. Its done all the time on message boards, take some time to read and learn before jumping off.




First off, I'm not sure why you took something I said in a light-hearted manner ("Mark Prior says hello") and used it to mock me. Very disrespectful. I simply presented something that is supported by considerable evidence, and you took it as a jab at you or something. I wasn't being demeaning to anyone, so I'm not sure why you took it to task to act in a condescending fashion toward me.

You asked for it. Read http://battleforohio.com/2009/08/04/dusty-baker-ruining-pitchers-since-1993/. Found that after a quick google search. It details, in length, the damage he did in San Francisco and Chicago. No major injuries in San Fran, but he obviously wore his pitchers down. As I stated, Dusty has a well-chronicled past of wearing down pitchers. They may not always result in injury, but they have often resulted in very poor performance in the following years.

With your list intended to mock me, you're trying to make the argument that because some pitchers' injuries aren't due to overuse, none of them are. I think we both know this to not be true. Some injuries just happen and nothing can be done about that. If I remember correctly, one of Prior's injuries was a line-drive comebacker that drilled him in the elbow; fluke occurrence. However, it is somewhat irresponsible to just say that all injuries are flukes. The pitching motion in baseball is not a natural motion (as opposed to softball, which features a natural motion that puts very little wear-and-tear on the arm). You do it enough, you're gonna have consequences. Here is a research article to back up what I'm saying: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1658

Regarding Mark Prior, check out this article http://redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com/2007/10/just-say-noto-dusty.html. Prior threw more pitches in his rookie year at age 22 than Aaron Harang ever had. From the article: "Modern medicine has removed some of the fog over pitching injuries and revealed that one of the quickest ways to ruin a young pitcher is to overwork him. It cannot be definitely said that Baker caused Prior to get injured, but given what we know about young pitchers and heavy workloads, he certainly put Prior at a substantially higher risk of injury." There is no way of knowing 100% that Dusty's overuse of Prior led to his injury, but there is no doubting Baker put Prior at a very high chance of being injured. That is poor managing, I am sorry. I know Dusty wanted to win, but winning at the expense of your best young pitcher's future is not worth it.

To sum up my entire novel of a post in one tidy paragraph, people far smarter than you or I (Dr. James Andrews, Dr. Mike Marshall, and Dr. Frank Jobe) say that a heavy workload on a young pitcher is a very bad idea. Dusty has always used his young pitchers much more frequently than modern medicine says is appropriate. His young pitchers have almost always suffered declines in production after being overused. Based on that, i think the criticisms of Dusty are pretty reasonable.

Natty Redlocks
02-14-2011, 01:00 PM
Does anyone here even remember that game? It's no surprise Harang is washed up to those who unfortunately heard/saw it. I remember threads on sundeck and ORG citing the multiple pitching blunders Dusty made that day which ultimately cost Harang his arm.

Harang goes 4 IP, 63 pitches total on that Sunday after a Thursday where he threw 103 pitches. 63 pitches off 2 days rest after a 100+ pitch start. Yeah yeah.... it was an 18 inning affair, but Dusty's decisions that day put them in that situation (keeping Cordero in too long and not using Bray early enough in a situation that called for a lefty).

Anyway, Reds had a day off the next Monday so what they should have done was bring Cueto out in the 13th inning. He had had a day more rest than Harang at that particular time, and Harang could have started that Tuesday instead, having 4 days rest instead of 2. I do not believe Belisle was available that afternoon, otherwise he would have been the best option having pitched Tuesday.

I remember watching Harang that game, pitching like his hair was on fire. He struck out NINE guys in the four innings; it was almost like he knew he shouldn't be out there and wanted to win the game as quickly as possible. Also, I remember Josh Fogg, I think, was the long reliever, and he pitched less than an inning, which is what really screwed Harang. Everything Dusty did that day blew up in his face. Two blown saves in one game. But, yeah, he seems like he's on a much shorter leash now. What I really don't get are the people acting like Harang was some sort of whiner. He always came across as a class act, a very hard worker, and a great teammate. And he got paid peanuts for some really good years, so that balances out the lousy years where he got paid well.

Oxblood
02-14-2011, 01:02 PM
Original post was hilarious!

I guess the guy isn't a baker fan.

justincredible
02-14-2011, 01:35 PM
I remember watching Harang that game, pitching like his hair was on fire. He struck out NINE guys in the four innings; it was almost like he knew he shouldn't be out there and wanted to win the game as quickly as possible. Also, I remember Josh Fogg, I think, was the long reliever, and he pitched less than an inning, which is what really screwed Harang. Everything Dusty did that day blew up in his face. Two blown saves in one game. But, yeah, he seems like he's on a much shorter leash now. What I really don't get are the people acting like Harang was some sort of whiner. He always came across as a class act, a very hard worker, and a great teammate. And he got paid peanuts for some really good years, so that balances out the lousy years where he got paid well.

I agree with this. I really don't get the Harang hate going on here.

Oxblood
02-14-2011, 01:43 PM
I agree with this. I really don't get the Harang hate going on here.

Seems that everyone has fallen in love w/ Dusty. Don't quite get it either.

signalhome
02-14-2011, 02:56 PM
Uhoh, looks like someone didnt have a Valentine this morning. He took your well used line of humor and simply added to it as an answer, no mocking needed. Its done all the time on message boards, take some time to read and learn before jumping off.

I don't believe I quite came off as suicidal in my post, I just initially took the post to be of a different tone than it was. He said he didn't mean it to be demeaning, and I believe him. It was my fault for taking what he said the wrong way and have since apologized to him.

I've been navigating message boards for years, I'm quite aware of how things work. Just because I only recently joined this board doesn't mean I'm completely in the dark.

However, I am married, so you were pretty much right on not having a valentine this morning. And in case my wife reads this, I'm only kidding.

defender
02-14-2011, 03:34 PM
I don't think either article proves that Baker is an arm shredder, however, like everybody he has made some bad decisions. I am sure Baker contributed to Harang's decline. It was not intentional, it was not because he is "old school", he does not manage like General Sherman. You can not seperate injuries from usage, but you also can not make a few observations and say they indicate a trend.

brm7675
02-14-2011, 03:52 PM
Dusty has had issues with pitchers, that is undeniable, but I will say he has shown some ability to learn or our pitching coaching did his job last season.

mroby85
02-14-2011, 05:29 PM
Seems that everyone has fallen in love w/ Dusty. Don't quite get it either.

I'd just like to say that I liked Dusty before it was popular haha. Seriously though, I think he doesn't get the credit he deserves. While I don't agree with the moves he makes a lot of times (not that it matters) he has a track record. There is also more to being a good manager than the on field decisions. Just as a quick example, the series against St. Louis last year when the Reds were swept it would've been a very easy time to lose your team, and they came back strong and the Cardinals were the team that floundered. I just think he does a great job at getting players motivated to play for him, and thats also a big aspect of being a good manager.

AintlifeGrande
02-14-2011, 06:15 PM
I can see why some people harshly reacted your thread.''Dusty Baker destroys another arm''isn't actually a way to start an intelligent discourse on Baker.

OGB
02-14-2011, 06:20 PM
The story doesn't add up. Sure you can use that for why Harang was bad the rest of that year, even though, in September that year he posted a 3.07 ERA in 6 starts, after he had gotten some rest on the DL. And What about the next 2 years? Was he still too tired to use his previous mechanics? Or maybe last year he was off balance without his appendix :)

A lot of people had basically this same reply, but I just have to say I agree. Harang saying his mechanics were off for 2 and a half seasons sounds like a weak excuse. My old man always said, "excuses are for losers."


Does Jim Riggleman? Strasburg says hello
Jerry Manuel? Johan Santana says hello
Joe Girardi? AJ Burnett says hello
Cecil Cooper? Roy Oswalt says hello
Tony Larussa? Chris Carpenter says hello
The list could go on and on with pitchers. The bottom line is pitchers are players that tend to have serious injuries at times. You couldn't possibly baby someone more than the Nationals did Strasburg and he still ended up needing TJ surgery. It's ridiculous in my opinion the amount of flack that Dusty gets. Prior and Wood are the reasons that he always gets the flack, but what about Zambrano? If I remember correctly Wood had already been injured before Dusty got there? What major injuries took place in San Francisco while he was there?
Agreed.
People that rip on Baker for his use of pitchers rarely have anything more intelligent to say than, "Look at Mark Prior and Kerry Wood!"

OGB
02-14-2011, 07:25 PM
You asked for it. Read http://battleforohio.com/2009/08/04/dusty-baker-ruining-pitchers-since-1993/. Found that after a quick google search. It details, in length, the damage he did in San Francisco and Chicago. No major injuries in San Fran, but he obviously wore his pitchers down. As I stated, Dusty has a well-chronicled past of wearing down pitchers. They may not always result in injury, but they have often resulted in very poor performance in the following years.


Did you even read this hackneyed article from this obviously biased, D-list blogger? I realize you offering it as "proof" only constitutes a portion of your overall post, but I found it so inaccurate and illogical that I feel I must refute it in-depth.
So here goes:

- ’93 – He pitched Bill Swift and John Burkett over 230 innings that year. They both had stellar years, each winning 20+ games, but at what price?
’94 - Swift and Burkett would have horrible years, neither winning more than 8 games and taking a significant drop in every other important statistical category.
Swift was 31 and in his 8th season in 1993. He followed that year going 8-7 with a 3.38 ERA. His career started to unwind at age 33 in Colorado. He pitched 5 seasons after '93.
John Burkett pitched another full decade after 1993. He pitched over 173 innings 7 more times. He won 105 more games.*

- ’95 – Mark Leiter has an average year going 10-12, not great, but he did have 7 complete games that year, trying to shoulder the load that Dusty put on him.
’96 – Hey, what do you know Leiter comes back next year and goes 4-10 and only manages 1 complete game.
Leiter was 32 in 1995. His previous best season was 9-7, 4.21 ERA, with 134.2 IP. 1995 was more the exception than the rule for his career.. Also the following season he was actually 8-12 with 2 CGs and 205 IP between Montreal and SF. (He threw 205 in '95 as well)

- He doesn't even offer any explanation or cogent analysis for what he has to say about Kirk Reuter, Shawn Estes, and Russ Ortiz other than that they started out very well in SF under Baker and then over the years slowly started to decline. Kirk Reuter actually had several outstanding seasons under Dusty.

- ’00 – Livan Hernandez is a rookie, so why not pitch him 240 innings?
’01 – Livan eats up more innings, 226, but at what cost? He goes 13-15 and has a high ERA, 5.24.
’02 – Dusty’s last supper with the Giants. Livan again goes above the 200 mark for innings, 216, but again has a losing record 12-16.
Hernandez has pitched over 233 innings 5 times in his career, only one of those under Baker. Additionally, 8 years later at age 35**, Hernandez posted a 3.66 ERA in 211.2 innings. Also, Livan was in his 5th season in 2000.

- He offers up absolutely nothing about Baker's time in Chicago other than to mention that Wood and Prior got hurt during his tenure. He conveniently ignores the fact that Carlos Zambrano thrived during this time. He also ignores the fact that Wood had pitched 691.2 innings before Dusty got to town, and is still a successful RP today.
(I don't have any kind of link to back this up, so it's probably not worth mentioning, but I've heard that experts have said that because of Prior's delivery/mechanics, he was a severe injury waiting to happen.)

- He has even less substance when it comes to Baker as Red's manager, but there is this gem:
It is not that Arroyo is like Zambrano and is impervious to Dusty’s ruining, it is that Bronson it too concerned with his next JTM commercial to really listen to the bad advice that Dusty is trying to give him.
Well, how can you argue with that logic?




*I don't think wins are an accurate gauge of a SP's success, but the blogger in question seems to, so I deemed that number relevant.
**Assuming anyone actually believes this geezer is only 35 years old.

Natty Redlocks
02-14-2011, 08:48 PM
I'd just like to say that I liked Dusty before it was popular haha. Seriously though, I think he doesn't get the credit he deserves. While I don't agree with the moves he makes a lot of times (not that it matters) he has a track record. There is also more to being a good manager than the on field decisions. Just as a quick example, the series against St. Louis last year when the Reds were swept it would've been a very easy time to lose your team, and they came back strong and the Cardinals were the team that floundered. I just think he does a great job at getting players motivated to play for him, and thats also a big aspect of being a good manager.

No doubt he has his strengths. I'm just puzzled by the tendency by some to downplay, or even be completely dismissive of, his many well-chronicled weaknesses.

signalhome
02-14-2011, 10:56 PM
A lot of people had basically this same reply, but I just have to say I agree. Harang saying his mechanics were off for 2 and a half seasons sounds like a weak excuse. My old man always said, "excuses are for losers."


Agreed.
People that rip on Baker for his use of pitchers rarely have anything more intelligent to say than, "Look at Mark Prior and Kerry Wood!"

I think most people point to Prior more than Wood, as Wood's mechanics were shaky to start with and Riggleman abused Wood much more than Baker.

Check this article http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/dusty-baker-and-pitch-counts/. It points out that from 2000-2006 (when the article was written), he let his starter go over 122 pitches 88 times, more than any other manager. 10% of his pitchers' starts go over 120 pitches, which is a very high number.

I should note here, however, that Dusty has actually been very fair in his pitcher usage since he came to Cincinnati. The only time I recall a pitcher being used inappropriately was Homer Bailey at the end of 2009, but that aside, Baker hasn't done anything too crazy, as far as I know.

Anyway, back to the point at hand. Now that it has been established that for the first half of the 2000's Dusty was using his pitchers at a much higher frequency than other managers, check this article http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1658. This paragraph in particular I find interesting:

"The quantity and character of a pitcher's use--and the fatigue that they induce--have received more attention lately in sabermetric circles. As a pitcher fatigues, his biomechanics begin to break down. While the tipping point of fatigue can be difficult to pinpoint, it can be broadly measured by such approaches as pitch counts, velocity tracking, and even observed exertion. As Keith Woolner and Rany Jazayerli have suggested, the relationship between fatigue and injury risk is exponential rather than linear; an overworked pitcher is significantly more likely to experience a traumatic injury."

If you overwork a pitcher, his mechanics break down and his risk of injury skyrockets. This is why Dusty has the reputation of being a pitcher-killer, it's not simply because of his use of Prior and Wood (though honestly, his use of Prior in 2003 was absolutely ridiculous). As the Hardball Times article pointed out, much of the Dusty talk is hyperbolic, especially today, when he actually seems to be pretty average with pitcher usage. However, I do think that there is enough evidence to say that from 2000-2006 at the least (and likely earlier, though I don't have the data to back that up), Dusty put his pitchers at a higher risk of injury by keeping them out there too long.

signalhome
02-14-2011, 10:59 PM
Did you even read this hackneyed article from this obviously biased, D-list blogger? I realize you offering it as "proof" only constitutes a portion of your overall post, but I found it so inaccurate and illogical that I feel I must refute it in-depth.
So here goes:

- ’93 – He pitched Bill Swift and John Burkett over 230 innings that year. They both had stellar years, each winning 20+ games, but at what price?
’94 - Swift and Burkett would have horrible years, neither winning more than 8 games and taking a significant drop in every other important statistical category.
Swift was 31 and in his 8th season in 1993. He followed that year going 8-7 with a 3.38 ERA. His career started to unwind at age 33 in Colorado. He pitched 5 seasons after '93.
John Burkett pitched another full decade after 1993. He pitched over 173 innings 7 more times. He won 105 more games.*

- ’95 – Mark Leiter has an average year going 10-12, not great, but he did have 7 complete games that year, trying to shoulder the load that Dusty put on him.
’96 – Hey, what do you know Leiter comes back next year and goes 4-10 and only manages 1 complete game.
Leiter was 32 in 1995. His previous best season was 9-7, 4.21 ERA, with 134.2 IP. 1995 was more the exception than the rule for his career.. Also the following season he was actually 8-12 with 2 CGs and 205 IP between Montreal and SF. (He threw 205 in '95 as well)

- He doesn't even offer any explanation or cogent analysis for what he has to say about Kirk Reuter, Shawn Estes, and Russ Ortiz other than that they started out very well in SF under Baker and then over the years slowly started to decline. Kirk Reuter actually had several outstanding seasons under Dusty.

- ’00 – Livan Hernandez is a rookie, so why not pitch him 240 innings?
’01 – Livan eats up more innings, 226, but at what cost? He goes 13-15 and has a high ERA, 5.24.
’02 – Dusty’s last supper with the Giants. Livan again goes above the 200 mark for innings, 216, but again has a losing record 12-16.
Hernandez has pitched over 233 innings 5 times in his career, only one of those under Baker. Additionally, 8 years later at age 35**, Hernandez posted a 3.66 ERA in 211.2 innings. Also, Livan was in his 5th season in 2000.

- He offers up absolutely nothing about Baker's time in Chicago other than to mention that Wood and Prior got hurt during his tenure. He conveniently ignores the fact that Carlos Zambrano thrived during this time. He also ignores the fact that Wood had pitched 691.2 innings before Dusty got to town, and is still a successful RP today.
(I don't have any kind of link to back this up, so it's probably not worth mentioning, but I've heard that experts have said that because of Prior's delivery/mechanics, he was a severe injury waiting to happen.)

- He has even less substance when it comes to Baker as Red's manager, but there is this gem:
It is not that Arroyo is like Zambrano and is impervious to Dusty’s ruining, it is that Bronson it too concerned with his next JTM commercial to really listen to the bad advice that Dusty is trying to give him.
Well, how can you argue with that logic?




*I don't think wins are an accurate gauge of a SP's success, but the blogger in question seems to, so I deemed that number relevant.
**Assuming anyone actually believes this geezer is only 35 years old.

Check my later posts, I clarify why I used that article; not for the guy's writing, most certainly, as it's pitiful. I merely wanted to present a few of the numbers in it, such as Hernandez pitching 240 innings (not a rookie, but he was only 25), and to show that Dusty used his pitchers at a high frequency in San Fran. I never should have used the article in the first place, as the terrible writing and other inaccuracies destroy its validity. Later, I posted a different article, one from Hardball Times, which does a much better job of detailing how Dusty stacked up against other managers in pitcher usage. I should have used it in the first place. Again, check out my later posts, they do a much better job of clarifying what I was trying to say in the first place.

By the way, you're absolutely right. Wins are a terrible gauge of a pitcher's success.

signalhome
02-14-2011, 11:03 PM
No doubt he has his strengths. I'm just puzzled by the tendency by some to downplay, or even be completely dismissive of, his many well-chronicled weaknesses.

Weaknesses, like telling your best hitter to sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the ninth, with two men on, and down by one run?

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/05/this-has-to-be-joke-part-deux.html

http://www.faniq.com/blog/Adam-Dunn-Helps-Dusty-Baker-From-Himself-MLB-WalkOff-Blog-8938

Maybe the worst managerial decision I have ever seen.

757690
02-15-2011, 03:49 AM
Weaknesses, like telling your best hitter to sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the ninth, with two men on, and down by one run?

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/05/this-has-to-be-joke-part-deux.html

http://www.faniq.com/blog/Adam-Dunn-Helps-Dusty-Baker-From-Himself-MLB-WalkOff-Blog-8938

Maybe the worst managerial decision I have ever seen.

I wouldn't do it there, but really an easy decision to justify. Bunting in that situation is a good decision with the right guy up and the right guy hitting behind him. Win on the road... tie at home.

It's not like he pinch hit Juan Castro for Josh Hamilton in the 9th inning of a close game... :rolleyes:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200706200.shtml

defender
02-15-2011, 01:05 PM
Ihttp://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1658[/url]. This paragraph in particular I find interesting:

"The quantity and character of a pitcher's use--and the fatigue that they induce--have received more attention lately in sabermetric circles. As a pitcher fatigues, his biomechanics begin to break down. While the tipping point of fatigue can be difficult to pinpoint, it can be broadly measured by such approaches as pitch counts, velocity tracking, and even observed exertion. As Keith Woolner and Rany Jazayerli have suggested, the relationship between fatigue and injury risk is exponential rather than linear; an overworked pitcher is significantly more likely to experience a traumatic injury."


I think the "attention in sabermetric circles," is look how smart we are. Not useful analysis. One year to the next stats in 21 year old pitchers are going to fluctuate more than 29 year olds. Why relate 50% innings drop to catastrophic injury? Just study injury. Why don't they just get all the injury data for all starters and compare ones with high pitch counts to the average starter? Conclusions should not be "88 is a lot" and "10% is very high."

signalhome
02-15-2011, 02:34 PM
I wouldn't do it there, but really an easy decision to justify. Bunting in that situation is a good decision with the right guy up and the right guy hitting behind him. Win on the road... tie at home.

It's not like he pinch hit Juan Castro for Josh Hamilton in the 9th inning of a close game... :rolleyes:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200706200.shtml

Maybe, but with Adam Dunn at the plate? I'd never bunt Dunn.

Haha, c'mon man, you just had to try and top my bad managerial decision with a worse one. I had forgotten that one. That's pretty bad.

signalhome
02-15-2011, 03:02 PM
I think the "attention in sabermetric circles," is look how smart we are. Not useful analysis. One year to the next stats in 21 year old pitchers are going to fluctuate more than 29 year olds. Why relate 50% innings drop to catastrophic injury? Just study injury. Why don't they just get all the injury data for all starters and compare ones with high pitch counts to the average starter? Conclusions should not be "88 is a lot" and "10% is very high."

The conclusion wasn't just that 88 is "a lot" or that 10% was "very high" (my words, not theirs), it was that they were higher than for any other manager in baseball. That Hardball Times article was not attempting to show a correlation between pitcher usage and injury. The article simply wanted to show that Dusty uses his pitchers more than anyone else, though not to the extent that some people think.

But here's an article that shows a relationship between PAP and injury.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1480

And a graph of all the data.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/images/20020522_03_woolner.gif

As for the "look how smart we are" thing, why do you feel that way? All that meant was that sabermetric people have been taking a hard look at some kind of correlation between pitcher usage and injury, with different people taking different sides (if I remember correctly, Bill James and Rob Neyer don't buy into what Woolner and Jazayerli say).

Kingspoint
02-15-2011, 09:21 PM
People here don't have as long a memory as I have. I saw Dusty doing it in San Francisco. He came to Chicago already with a reputation as hurting players' arms. I saw Dusty's predecessor, Roger Craig doing it much worse than Dusty Baker has done it. Baker learned from Craig.

That he cemented that reputation in Chicago was more proof than most people needed.

That he's now done it again in Cincinnati to Harang is just further proof.

That he's adjusted concerning Starting Pitchers, thanks to Walt Jockety, I believe, is some proof that he may be less likely to do it again.

That he rode the arms of Cordero and Masset into the ground last season counters that he's learning to adjust thanks to Walt and his wise counsel.

I definitely see a new and improved version of Dusty Baker the last year. I hope this guy remains and that he takes heed with the likes of Wood, Cueto, Bailey, Volquez, Chapman and Leake.

LeDoux
02-15-2011, 09:39 PM
I definitely see a new and improved version of Dusty Baker the last year. I hope this guy remains and that he takes heed with the likes of Wood, Cueto, Bailey, Volquez, Chapman and Leake.

I hope so too. But after that 120+ pitch outing of Bailey early last season, and his subsequent DL trip... I wonder.

takealeake
02-15-2011, 11:41 PM
People here don't have as long a memory as I have. I saw Dusty doing it in San Francisco. He came to Chicago already with a reputation as hurting players' arms. I saw Dusty's predecessor, Roger Craig doing it much worse than Dusty Baker has done it. Baker learned from Craig.

That he cemented that reputation in Chicago was more proof than most people needed.

That he's now done it again in Cincinnati to Harang is just further proof.

That he's adjusted concerning Starting Pitchers, thanks to Walt Jockety, I believe, is some proof that he may be less likely to do it again.

That he rode the arms of Cordero and Masset into the ground last season counters that he's learning to adjust thanks to Walt and his wise counsel.

I definitely see a new and improved version of Dusty Baker the last year. I hope this guy remains and that he takes heed with the likes of Wood, Cueto, Bailey, Volquez, Chapman and Leake.

Rode Cordero into the ground? Cordero rode himself into the ground. It was a hilarious thing last year seeing how pathetically, stupendously bad Cordero was, and then the excuses made as to WHY that was. Some people would say "this is Dusty's fault for using him too much!" then others would say "he hasn't pitched in several days, this is Dusty's fault!"

And in the end, whether Cordero pitched a lot or was well rested, he still sucked.

Krawhitham
02-16-2011, 12:39 AM
Aaron Harang is an excuse maker, and i'm glad he's gone.


BS, that is the moment his career jumped the shark. I never cared for Harang, never thought he was as good as the local press claimed. He was solid but not good, but his career went in the ****ter the day he went in as a reliever

He threw over 100 pitches and it was his 8th straight game pitching 100+ pitches, then with 2 days rest Dusty Faker had him pitch 4 more innings

Faker then put in Volquez on one day rest, when he is free to talk I bet he will say close to the same thing, he had to alter his mechanics due to fatigue and that led to Tommy John.

The damn fool had Arroyo warming up on ZERO days rest when Volquez gave up the winning HR.

He had Cueto on 3 days rest and a day off the next day and he never even warmed him up

Krawhitham
02-16-2011, 12:41 AM
Dusty Baker has turned this team into a winner

How many RBI did he have last year?

Krawhitham
02-16-2011, 12:45 AM
Nice reply.Harang was going downhill well before the bullpen game in San Diego

On May 25, the day of that game he had a 3.32 ERA coming off 2 seasons of 16 wins.

Care to explain how he was going downhill?

His ERA was half a run better before that outing than he had in those two 16 game winning seasons

Krawhitham
02-16-2011, 12:54 AM
The story doesn't add up. Sure you can use that for why Harang was bad the rest of that year, even though, in September that year he posted a 3.07 ERA in 6 starts, after he had gotten some rest on the DL. And What about the next 2 years? Was he still too tired to use his previous mechanics? Or maybe last year he was off balance without his appendix :)


Luck?

his On Base Percentage against for those games was 0.3413173652694611

it is also possible his arm would get tired faster due to the strain, he allow 10 runs & 17 hits (12 innings) in those last two starts

mroby85
02-16-2011, 12:10 PM
How many RBI did he have last year?

This comment is so funny the last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur. -Dale Doback.

This argument is ridiculous, if the manager didn't matter teams wouldn't hire one, and there wouldn't be ones that were consistently more successful than others.

Kingspoint
02-17-2011, 07:51 AM
Rode Cordero into the ground? Cordero rode himself into the ground. It was a hilarious thing last year seeing how pathetically, stupendously bad Cordero was, and then the excuses made as to WHY that was. Some people would say "this is Dusty's fault for using him too much!" then others would say "he hasn't pitched in several days, this is Dusty's fault!"

And in the end, whether Cordero pitched a lot or was well rested, he still sucked.

There were several factors that went into the "results" that Cordero had, which are too many for a discussion in this thread. It would need it's only topic. But, it doesn't take away the fact that Baker rode him into the ground last year (along with Massett). And, as badly as he struggled last year as you say, wouldn't it have been prudent of Baker to error on the side of not over-using him?

RedsFanInBama
02-18-2011, 03:15 PM
I've NEVER been happier to see a player leave the Reds than I was to see Harang go. He didn't look to me like he ever cared out there. He was also overweight and out of shape. I can't say I'll miss his presence in a Reds uniform.

bounty37h
02-18-2011, 03:26 PM
I don't believe I quite came off as suicidal in my post, I just initially took the post to be of a different tone than it was. He said he didn't mean it to be demeaning, and I believe him. It was my fault for taking what he said the wrong way and have since apologized to him.

I've been navigating message boards for years, I'm quite aware of how things work. Just because I only recently joined this board doesn't mean I'm completely in the dark.

However, I am married, so you were pretty much right on not having a valentine this morning. And in case my wife reads this, I'm only kidding.

I gotta give it to you, your sense of humor and willingness to let things roll off is awesome! :beerme: And dont worry, I am married too, so know where your coming from, or not.