You think??Originally Posted by M2
Not that your contention is wrong, but I pray this franchise doesn't base its organizational goals on who it hires..."well, our manager doesn't create a national buzz so let's go out and be mediocre"...
I'd like to think privately some folks have decided to move more chips into the middle of the table, including ante-ing up for one Mr. Baker (though I think that's a losing hand)...
You cannot defeat an ignorant man in an argument!
-William Gibbs McAdoo
Though many of us here are sure trying
I'd say who it hires reflects the organizational goals more than the other way around. The Reds spent years hiring managers (ones no one else was going to want) to lead a team that they nominally hoped would win, but one that hadn't been particularly engineered to do so.
Everyone wants to win, but there's a substantial difference between the "this might work" approach and the "bring me the head of the NL Central" approach.
What we've been given for seven years is lip service. The Reds weren't opposed to win, but they weren't particulary for it either. It wasn't an all-consuming drive inside the organization and the managers refelcted that.
Baker's hire indicates, to me, that we should expect some action this time around. If the Reds just wanted to subsist in the gray area between shaking the club up to compete and shaking it down to rebuild, they could have just kept Mackanin. He could made do with modest changes and done so with a pleasant manner to boot.
Instead we get Dustiny. My take is the cascade effect works like this.
- team decides it's time to up the ante
- team hires a manager with a strong win now mindset
- that locks in expectations, no one gets to shrug his shoulders and say "Oh well, that didn't work."
- team now has to give that manager a team it thinks will win, not one it thinks might win, one that will win
- new manager now stands a better chance of winning because he's been given resources that wouldn't have been handed to an anonymous hire
It could all go to pot, but I do think the Reds have locked themselves into a far more aggressive course of action and that could net results.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
This right here is exactly what has me jacked up. Go ahead and say "tr always agrees with everything the FO does," which, like Dusty, I'm so misunderstood, but that's for another time. The FO just spent $11M on a manager. Deadpan who that is all you want, but this is more than a name, this is someone who has been at the helm of winning programs. And I'm glad to see the Reds apparently recognizing that paying for quality people in the FO is just as important as chucking out multimillions to a player. A refreshing culture change. Now, go spend some money on ballplayers.
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog...name=law_keith
Keith Law
Baker's wrong for the Redsposted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry
Yes, Dusty Baker has had some success in his career when handed a stable roster with veterans filling major positions. Sure, he has a .527 winning percentages over 14 career seasons as a manager, finishing first in the division three times and second on six other occasions. But there is little reason to believe he can guide a rebuilding process forward, and there are many reasons to worry that he'll derail it instead. So in hiring Baker as their new manager, I believe the Cincinnati Reds made the wrong choice.
Baker's biggest flaws as a manager seem to coincide with the biggest needs the Reds have in terms of leadership. During his tenure with the Chicago Cubs (2003 through 2006), Baker earned a reputation among some in baseball as a shredder of young arms, overusing Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, and Matt Clement -- and coming close to the same with Carlos Zambrano.
Wood's last six regular-season starts in 2003 included pitch counts of 125, 120, 122, 114, 125, and 122. On Sept. 8, for example, the Cubs scored three runs in the top of the seventh to take a 9-2 lead, and Wood -- already at 107 pitches -- came out to pitch the bottom of the inning. In the playoffs that year, he threw 124 pitches in his first start and 112 pitches in under six innings in his last start. Wood, who had already had a history of arm injuries, including Tommy John surgery that cost him the 1999 season, hurt his arm in 2004, was limited by more arm injuries to just 86 innings in 2005-'06, and finally had to be moved to a one-inning bullpen role in 2007.
Prior, in the only fully healthy season of his major-league career, was 23 years old in 2003. He topped 120 pitches nine times, and in his last six starts, threw 131, 129, 109, 124, 131, and 133 pitches, the last coming in just 6 2/3 innings against Pittsburgh. He threw 132 pitches in his first playoff start, and started the eighth inning against Florida in Game 6 of their NLCS despite showing obvious signs of fatigue. He retired one hitter, gave up a double, a walk, a wild pitch, a single, a groundball to third that was misplayed for an error, and a double -- after which he was pulled. Baker didn't even have anyone warming up in the bullpen to start the inning.
Just as concerning is Baker's track record at developing young pitchers. Across his two tenures as a big-league manager (Baker also managed San Francisco from 1993 to 2002), he only had two rookie pitchers who turned into solid starters. The first was Russ Ortiz, a league-average starter during his time in San Francisco who managed to go two years with Atlanta before hurting his shoulder. The second is Zambrano, who has so far survived some enormous workloads doled out by Baker, starting with 214 innings and more than 900 batters faced at age 22. Zambrano's 2007 season, the worst of his big-league career, may be a fluke, but it may also be at least partly the result of the high workloads he endured under Baker.
Cincinnati has one of the best pairs of starting pitching prospect of any organization in the game, with potential No. 1 starter Homer Bailey sitting in AAA and potential No. 2 starter Johnny Cueto right behind him. Bailey already had huge workloads in his career before he signed with the Reds, working as a high school pitcher in Texas -- the same background Wood brought into pro ball.
So Baker likes to work pitchers hard and doesn't seem overly concerned when they walk too many opposing hitters. In fact, he has said bases on balls are an overrated part of offense.
"I think walks are overrated unless you can run," Baker said in an MLB.com back in March 2004. "If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps, but the guy who walks and can't run, most of the time he's clogging up the bases for somebody who can run. ... Who have been the champions the last seven, eight years? Have you ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks?"
This evinces, in my view, a lack of understanding of how runs are scored -- and of the importance not just of getting on base, but of plate discipline in general. And in fact, the two years before Baker made those comments, the Yankees did lead the American League in walks, just as they did in 1997 and 1998, the latter being the year in which they won 114 games and led the league in runs scored.
In 2004 with the Cubs, Baker batted Corey Patterson (.320 OBP) in the leadoff spot 55 times. In 2005, Patterson (.254 OBP) hit leadoff 29 times, while Jerry Hairston (.336 OBP) hit leadoff 76 times, and Neifi Perez (.298 OBP) hit second 65 times. And of course, in 2006, Baker used Juan Pierre -- who doesn't walk, but who can run -- and his .330 OBP in the leadoff spot 159 times. The Cubs finished second-to-last in the league in runs scored in 2006, and while that's also due to the fact that Derrek Lee was hurt and the Cubs had a lot of bad players, Baker's insistence on hitting one of his worst batters first while burying Matt Murton (.365 OBP) in the seventh spot was part of the problem.
Baker is now at the helm of a club whose most productive hitter, Adam Dunn, draws 100 walks a year and runs like a hippopotamus in quicksand. The incoming first baseman, top prospect Joey Votto, drew 70 walks in AAA this year, runs like a former catcher, and doesn't have the 30-homer power that might make Baker overlook the kid's patience. There's a good risk that Baker won't put these guys high enough in the lineup; there's also a risk that he won't play these guys at all, favoring faster contact hitters who don't work the count or get on base. Even Josh Hamilton, a superb athlete who once had good speed but whose knee injuries have limited his basestealing abilities, may find himself at risk.
The Reds will point to Baker's track record of taking two franchises to the playoffs, bringing one within a few outs of a World Series title and another within five outs of a pennant, but those experiences aren't applicable to the task ahead of Baker now. Both clubs were built to try to win in the short term, while the Reds just lost 90 games and their hopes for a turnaround rest on young players who are just now reaching the big leagues. Given Baker's overuse of his young arms in Chicago and his indifference to the importance of putting men on base, the Reds have made a big move in the wrong direction.
Tim McCarver: Baseball Quotes
I remember one time going out to the mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the batter, that the only thing I knew about pitching was that it was hard to hit.
The above post written by Keith Law that I posted does not comfort me at all. I despised Krivs during his first year on the job (when the Reds stayed in the hunt), I really thought a lot different over the past year as I warmed up to his moves and considered his moves all smart moves for the future (even though his team was a loser)....Now this...Wow...I am afraid that this team has been set back 3 years at least.
Point: Walks clog up bases - I'm not a SABR genius but this is insane.
Tim McCarver: Baseball Quotes
I remember one time going out to the mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the batter, that the only thing I knew about pitching was that it was hard to hit.
I didn't read the article but Keith Law doesn't really have track record of knowing much about anything as far as I can tell.
School's out. What did you expect?
Well it beats the best news of the Hot Stove league being the naming of a new announcer
Roll Willie Shoemaker out of his grave and stick him on a donkey...then hoist me on top of a Kentucky Derby winner...you get the point...
I want Dusty to succeed despite it not being my choice...I am indifferent to them spending $11 M to do it...if that's money well-spent, then fine...
But our fine FO needs to make a serious financial committment to pitching (IMHO through trades rather than via FA) and retention of current talent, hopefully initiated by Dunn's option being picked up today...
You cannot defeat an ignorant man in an argument!
-William Gibbs McAdoo
Though many of us here are sure trying
Besides Freel and/or Hopper.....this team does not have any of those fast types that do not walk.
I think Baker will hit Dunn 4th and Votto 6th....in between EE.
Phillips probably hit's 2nd.....Hopper/Freel or Keppinger hit's 1st.
It's not like this team is full of Womacks and Nefi perez's.
When they talk about veterans to bring in...I think they will look to starters to bring in. Maybe some bench.
I'm not sure that Dunn, while not a speedster, would be considered that much a base clogger either. He runs pretty well for a big man. It's not like he's Javy Valentin or anything.
School's out. What did you expect?
Agree. He's actually pretty speedy for a big guy. Didn't he have a little spate of stolen bases right around the ASB?
With Dusty on board, we might even see more stolen bases from the secret weapon.
Yea, once Dunn gets going he has pretty decent speed. He appears slow because of his slow stride, but his stride is such a long stride that it just chews up a ton of ground. Dunn's acceleration is quite slow, and that's probably the biggest drag on his defense, but I think his slow acceleration is just a side-effect of his size. There's very few athletes his size who also possess great acceleration.
The Lost Decade Average Season: 74-88
2014-22 Average Season: 71-91
So does a glacier.
Those glaciers (with the Bear Grylls pronunciation) will outrun anything once they get going.
The Lost Decade Average Season: 74-88
2014-22 Average Season: 71-91
Yeah, he has decent speed for a 6'6", 275 pound guy.
He does NOT have decent speed for a major league outfielder. He has below average speed for a MLB outfielder.
He's got plenty enough good qualities to not have to ignore his shortcomings.
We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective ~ Kurt Vonnegut
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