Dusty Baker is the new Astros Manager

[foster15]

71 people in the history of baseball have managed a team to a championship.
Everyone else is a failure.

Learn to read. I said "When they have the better team!". Nice try though

[North]

opinions are like...

...things to be taken at face value? Another person's viewpoint? Not to be denigrated from the git-go?

[westofyou]

...things to be taken at face value? Another person's viewpoint? Not to be denigrated from the git-go?

If they can't be validated by facts then they are opinions

[CySeymour]

Scott Rolen didn't make the All-Star team in 2012. So that's a ridiculous way of putting it. Especially since Scott Rolen never played another game after that series. He was DONE. So yeah, you bench an over the hill player who's so much a shadow of his former self that he's retiring for a player who was 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting.

And everybody but you, Dusty and the rest of his apologists knew that Latos didn't have it that day before he gave up the Grand Slam. On a normal day you leave him in, in a series deciding game, you have someone throwing in the bullpen every inning and you bring them in at the first sign of trouble. See my previous post as to how Dusty thought it was wrong for the Dodgers to bring Kershaw in from bullpen to close out a playoff series against him. His logic is STUPID. As is his all the rest of his managerial philosophies.

If you are going to fault Dusty for leaving Latos in too long in game 5, which is a reasonable argument, you also need to give him credit for the way he handled Cueto's injury in game 1.

[OGB]

Learn to read. I said "When they have the better team!". Nice try though

How many managers have there been in baseball history? Over a 500? 750? 1000? I have no idea. Btw, I'm drunk right .
The overwhelming majority complete and abject failures.

[RedsBaron]

How many managers have there been in baseball history? Over a 500? 750? 1000? I have no idea. Btw, I'm drunk right .
The overwhelming majority complete and abject failures.

Baseball Reference lists 711 MLB managers, from Manny Acta to Don Zimmer.

[Roy Tucker]

Must we talk about game 5 of the 2012 NLDS again? I had been making such good progress with my therapist.

[RedsfaninMT]

Who cares if a writer fought with a manager? That’s a common baseball thing... like uniforms and pitchers rosin

I couldn't agree more, but it's beyond silly to blame Dusty for the behavior of Bryan Price.

[cumberlandreds]

Dusty is good manager. His record proves it. You can never blame him fully for that game five. The die was cast in that series when Cueto went down with his injury. No way Latos would been on the mound in game five if Cueto was available. Also Leake would have never started game four. Just sheer bad luck for the Reds. Also no way in the world that Frazier was going to start over Rolen at that point. Maybe he was the better choice but it just wasn't going to happen and at that time I think everyone knew that. Anyone thinking that is being a revisionist 2nd guesser that gets you no where.
The Astros have made a great choice here. Dusty has tremendous integrity and that is what the Astros need most at the moment. Also I really hope Dusty can finally get his championship as long as it isn't at the expense of the Reds.

[redsmetz]

I don't think "average" summarizes Dusty very well. He's an excellent regular season manager, highly respected by his players, a great leader of men.

He's not won in the post-season, I'd argue a combo of lack of urgency in his decisions and some bad luck.

Overall, though, he's won 1863 regular season ballgames with a .532 winning percentage. He's made it to the post-season nine times with four different teams and 23-32 W-L and .418 winning percentage.

He's a great fit for the Astros although he's not managed in the AL previously.

Good for him, he keeps turning up, fits the job well. Good luck Dusty.

Dusty ranks 15th all-time for mangers with that number. An 85 win season, which should be reasonably reached, puts him at 12th just ahead of Casey Stengal, passing up Bill McKechnie, Gene Mauch and the aforementioned Stengal. Bruce Bochy is next at 11th with 2003. He's still active in Dusty's old post San Francisco.

[Tony Cloninger]

I liked him until the CTrent incident. Up until that, I had him ranked 4th behind Sparky, Davey and Sweet Lou.

After that, I began to realize that Dusty is the Andy Dalton of MLB managers.

His name was Bryan Price. His name was Bryan Price.

If Dusty is Andy Dalton then Bryan Price was Rich Kotite.

[Bob Sheed]

Dusty just sat there smirking while BP went on his tirade.

I lost respect for both Dusty and BP that day. I never cared for CTrent, so no respect to lose there.

Bryan Price? When he laid into CTrent it felt like the fakest, most shallow attempt to gain respect in the clubhouse. Not sure why anyone thinks I'm confusing the two ex Reds Managers... Dusty was the Marvin Lewis of the Reds, Price was the Dave Shula.

[M2]

Well, if he smirked ...

[Slyder]

Did he leave Latos in to give up 7 runs in 4 innings in game 5? Yeah
Did he bench Todd Frazier, who had as much to do with the Reds success as anyone else that season, in favor of over the hill Scott Rolen? Yeah.

Ran us out of a big inning opportunity down 3 with 2 on and no one out to basically end the game in 6th.

[allpurpose]

I am so happy for Dusty.. He's a great manager and a class act.

The only problem is that I really can't hate the Astros anymore.

I'm sorry..I can still hate the Astros even if Barry Larkin, Johnny Bench and Joe Nuxall when he was still alive were all named co-managers of the Astros, past, present and future.. . I still hated the steelers when Kenny Anderson was their QB coach..