Dusty Baker Is Not a Bad Hire
The Nationals were psychologically prepared to replace Matt Williams with Bud Black. But according to reports, they were less financially prepared to do that, so now they’re actually replacing Williams with Dusty Baker. For the organization, it’s something of an embarrassing turn, not because they ended up with Baker, but because they acted too cheaply to get their first choice. But, whatever, that’s already in the past. What matters now is Baker. And few managers and managerial candidates can provoke so strong a fan reaction. When it comes to Dusty Baker, people have feelings.
For sure, there are those who point to his record, his experience and history of winning. He’s a proven manager, which Matt Williams most certainly was not. Yet Baker also has another reputation. When word started to spread that he was going to Washington, a common response was that it would be bad news for the pitching staff. Baker is forever followed by references to Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, and it’s the sort of thing he clearly can’t out-run. To so many people, Baker is a pitcher-destroyer. Even among those who don’t really feel that way, everyone’s familiar with the rep.
It should be understood that nothing is ever simple. And it should be understood that behavior changes. Dusty Baker is going to manage the Washington Nationals. I don’t see a convincing argument for why that’s a bad thing.
Let’s tackle the pitching thing first. This could be done really quickly, just by pointing out that, hey, pitchers get hurt, literally all the time, frequently for no clear reason. Any manager would be expected to experience a certain number of pitcher injuries. It doesn’t have to be their fault. It doesn’t have to be anybody’s fault.
Yet I think it’s pretty clear how Baker got the rep he has. When he was managing the Cubs, that was back when people paid more attention to Pitcher Abuse Points. And a select number of people were also talking about pitching mechanics, and spreading the idea that Prior’s delivery in particular was perfect. I think, back then, there was a greater degree of confidence that injuries could be predicted and therefore prevented. One of the keys was avoiding overuse. Baker rode some of his pitchers hard. And Wood and Prior were so talented it was devastating when they were rendered unfit to pitch.
Maybe that was negligence. Maybe Wood and Prior were just going to get hurt no matter what. Maybe Baker played some role in all that. But if you believe that Baker overworks his pitchers, that belief is outdated. I pulled, from Baseball-Reference, starts under Baker with 120 pitches or more. It’s kind of an arbitrary cutoff, but a start with 120 pitches or so raises certain red flags. I went back to 2000, because I didn’t see the point in going back any further. Between 2008 – 2013, Baker was in charge of the Reds.
The pattern is easily identifiable. Baker used to push his starters. More recently, he hasn’t done that. The league overall has behaved similarly, now with a greater degree of pitcher caution, and at this point it doesn’t seem like it should really matter how Baker managed between 2003 – 2006. Even if you really, truly, deeply believe Baker has some blood on his hands for what took place with Wood and Prior, that doesn’t have anything to do with the 2016 Nationals. Over six years with the Reds, Baker oversaw 24 starts with 120+ pitches, a lower total than his 2003 alone. Over those six years, the Reds ranked 10th in baseball in that category, five starts above the league average of 19. The Rays, if it matters, ranked seventh.
There’s not really all that clear a link between workload and injury rate, but even if there were, Baker would seem a better manager in that regard than he used to be. And keep in mind that these end up being organizational decisions — if Baker worked a given starter too hard then he could expect to hear about it. Baker won’t be pushing his starters further than the Nationals overall are comfortable with. His authority is significant, but limited. The Nationals will make sure he’s not reckless.
If you review the specific pitcher record, Wood broke down. Prior broke down. Yet Carlos Zambrano survived. Moving on to the Reds, it’s not like Johnny Cueto didn’t come to flourish under Baker. Homer Bailey more recently became hurt, but he was steady in the Baker years. Mike Leake didn’t have any problems, and he’s about to receive an awful lot of money. Edinson Volquez did have an elbow thing. Mat Latos‘ thing was a knee thing, which isn’t a Baker problem. This is going to be unscientific, but I don’t think Baker had a real injury problem in Cincinnati. He didn’t have the high-profile breakdowns he had in Chicago.
Baker also has another reputation, of not being the most saber-friendly manager around. He’s perceived as one of the old-school types, because he is one of the old-school types. In his Reds years, they led all of baseball in sacrifice bunts. Baker put Zack Cozart in some weird places in the lineup. There was a quote about preferring RBI to OBP. You would’ve thought Joey Votto and Dusty Baker would butt heads, but it was under Baker that Votto won the MVP. Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here: Baker will probably implement some sub-optimal in-game strategies. He’ll behave more in accordance with the book than The Book. The World Series was literally just won by a manager who batted Alcides Escobar leadoff. It isn’t about the strategies. It’s never been about the strategies.
At the end of the day, a manager is a leader. The job is to get the best out of the players you can. This is where Matt Williams failed — Williams proved to be a terrible leader. Players didn’t like playing for him. Baker’s been a leader for decades. However successful Baker is in the clubhouse will be the story of how successful he is as a manager.
This is why people cite Baker’s win/loss record. Over 20 years, he’s won about 53% of the time, and that’s telling. That suggests that Baker has been able to pull out better-than-average performance. It could be more telling to look at what some of those teams were expected to do before the year. If they were collectively supposed to win, say, 55% of the time, then that would be more problematic.
Let’s focus on Baker’s last job, managing the Reds for six years. Over those six years, the Reds won 509 regular-season games. The Reds were projected, preseason, to win 497 games, for a difference of +12. That ranked the Reds ninth-best over the six-season window. For whatever it’s worth, the Reds also beat their BaseRuns record by four wins. That’s small, but I might as well include it.
With the Reds, total, Baker got a better team performance than was expected in spring training. As bad as we are at evaluating managers, that seems like it should be worth something. It’s the whole point — make sure the players are giving their best, as often as possible. Baker might not always make the best in-game decisions, but that isn’t as important as keeping the roster motivated. The disappointing Nationals just had a leadership problem. People in the front office can talk to Baker about bunts and times through the order.
When Baker was dismissed by the Reds, it followed a brief but crucial late-season slump. It was a slump that just about spoiled a year, but if you take a step back, you tend not to see a problem with drive. Historically, players have played pretty hard for Dusty Baker, and he’ll bring an authoritative, experienced voice to a clubhouse that never had it in 2015. He’s already had to deal with some extraordinary egos so he should be able to handle that aspect of the Nationals, and then with some better player health, Baker might be in line to be credited for a turnaround. As far as that health is concerned, I don’t see Baker as a threat.
Managers are hard. We usually don’t write much about these things. It’s almost impossible, but here, I don’t see reason to believe Dusty Baker is a bad hire for the Nationals. He might even be a good hire. He’s an old-school manager with some dicey reputations, but most recently, he helped the Reds win. Winning is what the Nationals would sure like to do.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Counterpoint: Yes he is
+1, this is just about as strong an empirical argument as this piece makes.
Prove it, ass-testes.
No? Awesome. Go fuck off.
Very classy, Mr. Troll.
The article pretty much concedes that Baker will be bad at in-game strategy and lineup construction. He will leave starters in too long, fail to properly account for the platoon advantage, use his closer based on “saves” rather than leverage, fill out his lineup card based on old stereotypes rather than give more at-bats to better hitters, fail to appreciate good batters who don’t have high averages or HR’s, give up outs via sacrifice bunts, and fail to properly use defensive shifts. These things all have small but measurable effects on wins and losses.
On the other hand… Whether MLB baseball players play better based on their motivation level is an open question; there is no empirical evidence of that, and it runs counter to what we know about “clutchness” and counter to what we know about the egos and confidence levels of professional athletes. Whether a baseball manager has value insofar as he can motivate players is an open question; there is no empirical evidence of that. Whether Dusty Baker in particular is above- or below-average at motivating players is an open question; there is no empirical evidence of that.
The article’s only evidence is that the 2008-2013 Reds slightly overperformed their pre-season projections. It is more likely that the “overperformance” was due to injuries, and/or in-season trades, and/or failures of the projection system.
Reading anything Dusty says in a way that suggests he has any capability of analysis or managerial expertise above and beyond the most banal of baseball cliches is a mistake.
Dusty is a antiquated dinosaur, a man with a head full of myths, nonsense, and outright lies (see “basepaths, clogging”). He simply does not understand analytics: the man is as saber-unfriendly and unknowledgeable as Hawk Harrelson. Dusty is hopeless with pitching staffs, and will make the worst tactical decisions of any manager in any level of professional baseball, including rookie leagues. He is a human disaster waiting to befall the Nats.
I think that the only person who might possibly have competed with him for worst possible hire with MLB experience would have been “Ruin Tomorrow” Amato.
And, yes, Dusty does have blood on his hands. And not enough in his brain.
I agree, excellent hire. Glad to have him on board.
“On-base percentage is good. But RBIs are better.”
I really dont know what’s wrong with “OBP is good but RBI is better.” Hes not dismissing or devaluing OBP, hes merely recognizing the value of ACTUAL RUNS on the board above POTENTIAL runs. He knows you need one to have the other, hes just seen OBP+LOB=LOSS enough to know someone has to convert, and the more guys converting the more you win.
He also stated in the past that walks “clog up the basepaths”. You cant score runs if you dont get on base. We’ve seen time and time again how teams fare in the playoffs when they rely on the longball. It is not a recipe for continued success.
“It isn’t about the strategies. It’s never been about the strategies.”
It certainly isn’t entirely about the strategies. I agree that it’s very difficult for us to evaluate managerial performance, because the metric of “getting players to perform to the best of their ability” isn’t exactly easy to quantify.
That said, I’m not willing to just overlook Baker’s tactical flaws. Yes, his strategic failings — questionable bullpen management, too much bunting, a bizarre obsession with batting middle-infielders second — are shared by most managerial candidates. But given that the talent is spread so evenly across MLB, a team could likely gain a significant competitive advantage by hiring a manager who doesn’t fall into these traps. Maybe motivating players is the most important part of a manager’s job, and maybe Baker is good at it. But we shouldn’t overlook his obvious flaws, even if those flaws aren’t all that unique.
Was it Sammy Sosa?
Walks just clog up the bases.
Baker was so hated a Cubs team member once took a shit on the dugout steps Dusty would stand on during games. Sounds like a man who can really lead the pathetic Nats to victory. Considering taking out a reverse mortgage and putting all my money on the “under” for Nats wins for 2016. What a joke.
Wait…really?
uhh
http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22297882/27609378
I swear under penalty of perjury that “Never before in my life have I ever publicly defecated, on a floor or otherwise”
https://popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Chuck-Johnson-v-Gawker_affidavit-I-have-never-befouled-a-floor-privately.pdf
He’s got a manipulative side. He’d use his young son to deflect criticism. He’d make outrageous claims on race and would take offense when Chicago media called him on it. Not sure how he was in other cities, but he was a con man in Chicago, and the cuteness of his schtick wore off quickly.
First, the story says “someone.” It doesn’t say Cubs player. Maybe it was a player, but we can’t know that for sure.
More importantly, I’m no Baker fan but, if that story is true, it says more about the person who did it than it does Baker. It’s disgusting (the Cubs staff had to clean it up, not Baker) and extremely passive-aggressive.
I agree, it’s disgusting and disrespectful of the whole organization, but there’s nothing “passive” about it. It’s just plain aggressive and, as you say, disgusting. If you’re mad at your boss and respond by not doing your work, that’s passive-aggressive. If you shit on his path, that’s aggressive.
it’s disgusting and disrespectful of the whole organization
Sound like Jim Hendry to me.
Strongly disagree.
He falls somewhere in the Ned Yost/Terry Collins category of manager.
In other words, a huge step up from Matt Williams. Of course, a rotten head of cauliflower would be a huge step up from Matt Williams.
True.
He’s also a pretty lousy bullpen manager. I’d be more concerned about that.
I agree.
I think Nen knew he was toast and continued to pitch anyway.
Irrelevant.
Managerial winning percentage sounds like grasping at straws. Especially without mentioning he had three historic players (Bonds, Sosa, & Votto) on each of those teams.
????
Sosa and Baker only overlapped in Chicago for two seasons, and Sosa wasn’t really special at that point.
And while Votto was really good, I would exactly consider him historically good. In Dusty’s time in Cincy, Votto was less valuable than Evan Longoria and Miguel Cabrera, and their teams didn’t see all that much more success in that stretch.
Votto ranks 14th all-time in OBP (.423). Next closest active player is Cabrera at 60th place (.399). Maybe he isn’t historically good from a WAR standpoint, but he is certainly historically good at getting on base.
Votto also ranks t-19th (Mays) all-time in Adjusted OPS+ (156). That’s higher than the aforementioned Cabrera.
And saying Votto was less valuable than Miguel Cabrera and peak-Longoria isn’t really very damning.
Votto’s better than you think he is. He’s just not one of the 10 best hitters of all-time. So if that is your criterion, then you are correct.
I guess the point is that there have been a good handful of players better than Votto playing at the same time as him at any given time.
But, anyway, this is baseball; you can’t – ever – say “he had this really good player, so he was practically handed the playoffs.” Not how this works.
To be fair, as Dave Cameron has often noted, it’s hard to figure out good metrics for managers. FWIW Baker’s teams do tend to perform at or above their “Pythagorean” performance level. In 20 seasons he’s only had one season where his team finished five games under their pythag (2004, with the Cubs), and he’s had four seasons where his team was five games or more above – three where the team was six games or more above (most recently in 2012, +6). Overall he averages a game or so above.
So the answer is to write articles based on blah blah blah he won a lot of games with talented teams and this team is talented and his players love him and play better for him than otherwise even though I have no proof of this and admit he does sub-optimal things and only stopped riding pitchers into the ground when his FO made him and this FO will make him?
He’s going to have one in Washington too.
Wood/Prior Always get mentioned but Aaron harang is probably the more egregious example of Dusty riding a pitcher too hard. It is worth noting that Kerry Wood had injury problems way before Dusty managed the cubs, he missed all of 1999 recovering from tommy john. Given what we now know about the “honeymoon period” after TJ surgery perhaps Wood’s injury proneness shouldn’t have been so surprising. Prior may be more of a “shit happens” kind of case but people have been questioning his mechanics for a decade. Correct me if im wrong but wasn’t the “perfect mechanics” thing perpetuated by his agent anyway?
When Mark Prior came up there were a lot of articles written about how his mechanics were perfect, and that’s why he wasn’t an injury risk. It wasn’t just his agent pushing that train of thought.
The biggest problem with Prior’s mechanics was running into Marcus Giles.
The problem is that Dusty did nothing to protect the pitchers. He’d leave Wood & Prior in blowout games with high pitch counts.
Like, for instance, 2003 NLCS Game 2. Prior started the 8th inning with 110 pitches behind him and something like a 12 run lead.
Aaron Harang was never the same after Dusty had him throw a 63 pitch outing in 4 innings of relief between starts in 2008.
May 22 – 103 pitch start
May 25 – 63 pitch, 4 inning relief appearance on 2 days rest
May 29 – made his regularly scheduled start on 3 days rest, got shelled in 73 pitches.
From the moment Dusty made Harang throw three times in a week, he posted a 5.88 ERA in 18 starts.
Exactly…
And then, in Harang’s final 8 starts of that 2008 season, he posted a 2.83 ERA and 1.167 WHIP over 54 IP.
And early the next season, Harang turned age 31, which was probably Baker’s fault, too.
Oops, sorry, that doesn’t fit the narrative…
Can’t believe Harang wasn’t even mentioned.
Look at Dusty Baker’s credentials. Is he the greatest manager of all time? No, but he was surely the most qualified to take over this job. There are genuine reasons to distrust Baker, but it seems odd that a man with his resume gets this kind of reputation. As always, players and people in the game think differently than a bunch of Fangraphs commenters. It only makes you wonder, would he have faced such difficulty finding a job if he were white? He’d certainly be criticized a lot less…
Race has nothing to do with it, so do not try to force an agenda. Focus on the man, not the color of his skin.
I’m looking at his qualifications here. He has a history of success and tons of experience. If people didn’t subject this hugely-successful manager to unwarranted criticism, nobody would be discussing race. He is the best man for the job, and he was not being treated as such.
“Unwarranted,” seriously? You wouldn’t get a warrant bigger than the one for a critique of Dusty Baker’s in-game tactics if you held up a bank.
Criticism, warranted or unwarranted, has nothing to do with race. The only person discussing it is you.
The worth of a manager who can control the personalities in a clubhouse and command each player to play their best is invaluable. It will always be significantly more important than in-game tactics. You’re just mad that the stats can’t calculate them.
“I’m looking at his qualifications here.”
[person mentions his qualifications]
“You’re just mad that his qualifications are ineffable and undiscussable.”
Your opinion about his in-game tactics has nothing to do with qualifications. In terms of experience and success, he is more than qualified. In terms of his respect throughout the game, he is more than more than qualified. Even if he’s not the best tactician, a manager’s job is to lead, and he’s damn good at that.
The goalposts are moving so fast they rate a pure 80 on the speed scale
Do you still not know what qualifications are, Roger? Because it seems that you have no idea what qualifications are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3DOmZXEHiY
Hey Dingbat… he broke pitcher’s arms.
One of his qualifications included sitting and looking on with a smirk on his face while he let Brandon Phillips call a Reds beat writer a “fat fuck” over and over in a pre-game managerial interview.
What was the beat writer’s transgression, you ask? Tweeting that BP had a .310 OBP at the time.
If you’re a manager, do you let a player crash your managerial pre-game media interview to profanely lash out at a guy just doing his job?
Nothing wrong with DDD’s observations in this stretch. You’re now just ‘-‘ing him out of spite.
And yes, it’s common for a manager to stand up for his player in any and all disputes with a not-player. (or front office superior)
Yeah I mean look at how respect Ned Yost has been shown after winning the WS. It must be because of some mixed ethnicity thing.
This is a different debate about how Fangraphsians refuse to respect any manager that doesn’t follow every tenet of the sabermetric dogma.
Yuck.
Uh, Mr. 3 Dingers, if Fangraphs commenters give crap to white managers and African-American managers about the same thing, that kind of proves it’s not about race.
Other than being hyperbolic about it, DDD’s got a point right here.
Methinks Mr. 3 Dingers and Richie are one and the same…
As a Nats fan, the managerial candidates I was rooting for were Charlie Montoyo, Dave Martinez, DeMarlo Hale, and Bo Porter, none of whom are white. (Only one of these four was interviewed, I think.)
The amount of dust Baker reputation. He was the general manager of all time? No, but I had to be ready to work. There are good reasons not to trust Baker, but it seems to be kind of a name. As usual, the players and the feel of the game is different from the group of Fangraphs. Just makes you think, and they deal with the same problems in finding work as white? It will no doubt be criticized too small …
spot on analysis
poetic, even
Any manager that has a .250 OBP from his team’s leadoff spot for an entire season will forever earn the ire of the Fangraphs community.
Yeah, because we “fangraphs types” sure went easy on Matt Williams.
Why did no one tell me Williams was a White Man?
Damn It!
Sorry Matt. I totally didn’t mean it or know you were white. Really sorry about all those things I said.
why do people like you think it’s fun/ny to throw race into a discussion where it is a complete non-factor?
Why do people think it shows some sort of intelligence to make sure that conversations on this site never include race, even when they have no idea whether it’s a factor or not?
Like honestly, you bring up race (or even sex) on this site and the #notallwhitepeople (#notallmen) crew comes out in force. Then they argue that they really aren’t racist, just that race isn’t an issue here. This time. In this instance. But next time we can talk about it. Believe us, we’re not racists! Then the next time comes and they say it isn’t about race, either. All while the writers/editors on this site give a collective shoulder shrug as to why they don’t have more diverse representation.
I think ya’ll answered your own question.
Everyone is the same color on my spreadsheet, dumbass.
This comment wins the thread
I agree. Some colorblind racism is exactly what’s winning in this thread. The idea/joke that racism is eradicated through proper use of a spreadsheet is about the whitest thing I’ve ever read.
I’m not down with Dingers’ hyperbole, or maybe even his reasoning, but ya’ll are very sure of yourself that race plays no part in other people’s/your own decisions. It’s like if you say it enough times you won’t have to deal with it.
Whitest thing you have ever read? And that whitest thing you have ever read is racist? Great. Piss off.
What is the Blackest thing you have ever read?
Don’t conflate Dusty being terrible with racism.
It doesn’t matter a damn what race Dusty is. What matters is that he is a terrible choice.
I was ragging on Williams for being a very bad manager all season. Do you think that was race-based? Do you think my contempt for Mattingly or my respect for Maddon are race-based? Race HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. If I were a GM, I’d hire a giant insect from another galaxy as my manager if he were the best choice available.
Take your stupid, pointless, overused, cry wolf race card and go home.
As long as he can keep that kid of his outta my way!
Point: Article written, citing a number of statistical markers that indicate that “popular wisdom” may be flawed or outdated.
Counterpoint: OH YEAH? WELL, BAKER SUCKS!
One can’t help but enjoy the irony that the counterpoints are coming from those who are on Fangraphs, often because they feel that MLB too often falls back on “popular wisdom” that doesn’t hold up well to statistical analysis.
Where can I find manager winning percentage on this site?
Heh. Logical fallacy infraction, attempted reversal of burden of proof!
I’m not taking a position on Baker one way or the other. I’m noting that the article does attempt to find some ways of analyzing Baker’s record as a manager. And virtually all of the heated responses are entirely the type anecdotal, knee-jerk viewpoints that many believe that Baker relies on to a fault. Want to disagree? Fine – let’s see your equivalent metrics that do a better job of establishing that Baker is not at least an OK manager.
We’ve really caught them on this one!
Point: Article written, citing a number of statistical markers that indicate that “popular wisdom” may be flawed or outdated.
That is not at all what the author did. No where did he disprove any criticisms. At most he showed that Baker can be prevented from killing pitchers and his bad decisions won’t have a sig effect.
The real thrust of the article was a positive case for baker because he is a leader of men and has many wins on his resume and teams lose when he leaves.
If you’re trying to make the case that he’s not a bad hire, this deserved one line, phrased as disarmingly as possible:
“Baker put Zack Cozart in some weird places in the lineup.”
Check.
If you’re trying to make an objective analysis about whether he’s a good or bad hire, that deserved at least a full paragraph.
I don’t think so, not given what we understand about the relative insignificance of batting order. Also, remember that Baker was willing to bat Shin-soo Choo leadoff.
And he also made Choo play CF because only CF and SS can lead off under Dusty Baker.
Look, I know you don’t think that batting orders are that important. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t that important. You don’t just go pissing away advantages for no reason, no matter how small they are.
That wasn’t really on Dusty, though. That was on Walt Jocketty pulling an AJ Preller and entering the season with a Ludwick/Choo/Bruce outfield. Who was Dusty supposed to put in CF when his GM wasn’t giving him a CF?
Chris Heisey. Through small sample sizes, he’s rated as at least average in CF throughout his career, but only played 9 innings there in 2013, while playing 75 games in the corners. Derrick Robinson, certainly better defensively than Choo, got the large majority of his playing time in LF. Xavier Paul, while not a stellar defenders, was probably no worse than Choo, also never played any time in CF.
Dusty has plenty of better options. He just chose not to use them.
“Baker might not always make the best in-game decisions, but that isn’t as important as keeping the roster motivated.”*
*citation needed.
I can tell you that Charlie Manuel’s in-game decisions were enough to make many Phillies fans foam at the mouth in rage (an admittedly simple task, but still!). However, the players absolutely loved the guy and would give their all for him. The Phillies in their glory days were a very cocky, ego-driven team; Manuel was a key reason why a lot of those guys weren’t at each other’s throats, ala Washington.
This is just one example, so take it as you will, but I agree with Jeff on this one.
But where is the evidence that Baker is one of these guys?
http://espn.go.com/abcsports/wwos/rtrdusty2.html
http://www.cincinnati.com/article/20071013/SPT04/310130034/Baker-to-manage-Reds
Here are a couple of articles that describe Baker as a player’s manager. Also, the man smoked weed with Jimi Hendrix. Hell, I’d love playing for him too! That’s awesome!
I mean, Ned Yost has played in the past two World Series…
Must’ve been as a defensive replacement. I don’t remember him come to the plate at all.
I feel like it’s at least worth mentioning: for all the first-time, no-experience, supposedly front-office-and-stats-friendly managerial hires we’ve seen the last few years, Mike Matheny is the only one with consistent success, and he certainly hasn’t been without his tactical blunders (plus, wasn’t he more or less La Russa’s hand-picked successor?). Who’s even second from that list? Brad Ausmus? AJ Hinch? (although it took three seasons) Matt Williams??? And these are supposed to be the guys taking orders from the GMs and such. Maybe it isn’t that straight-forward.
There may be something to the idea of track record and experience meaning something for managers. At the very least, since they burned their shot at Bud Black, I’m not sure there’s an obvious better candidate they missed out on.
Matt Williams was never a “stats-friendly” manager. He said his favorite metric was batting average with RISP in his first press conference…
BA with RISP correlates strongly to RE24-wRAA, which is how teams do better than they “should” based on context neutral stats.
Players seem to want to play for Dusty, and egos seem to quiet down for Dusty. It’s obvious that, towards the end, the Nationals players just flat-out lost respect for Matt Williams. I think Bryce Harper can use a little Dusty guidance, even though it’ll probably be a little weird for him in the beginning. I think whoever has the task of managing a team “led” by Bryce Harper deserves all our blessings.
Also, the point you made about the Royals leading off with Alcides is salient. Those two clubs are nothing alike in terms of talent but I can follow along with the idea. Yes, we’ll probably see Michael Taylor lead-off a number of those games. But we should be more tolerant of “old-school” lineup constructions for a little while, just to see if it works again. I think Dusty is a great hire.
Call it a hunch, but I’m trying to imagine Harper getting “guidance” from Dusty and just can’t imagine it.
He’d just call Boras and complain.
He took a lot of advice from Williams fairly well, and sought him out particularly for hitting advice. He was benched by Williams once and said that it was the right decision. What makes you think this, exactly?
You know very little about Bryce Harper then.
“Egos seem to quiet down for Dusty…”
Have you heard of Brandon Phillips? As a Reds fan, I’ve been glad he was on my team for the majority of his tenure, but Dat Dude has had some ego issue — I’m remembering a notable instance where he went off on one of our beat reporters.
And I hope Nats fans are excited about their SS and CF hitting #1 and #2 every game, because I see that in their future. It’s not like Price has been any sort of Promised Land, but I was glad to see Baker go.
You were glad to see Baker get fired and have your 90-win team turn to absolute shit? lol
Our chief problem (as with almost every struggling baseball team) is in the front office, not the manager. However, the engine being dead doesn’t mean the tires aren’t flat too.
Denard Span batting lead off?!
Oh, the horror!
An old school guy like Baker will be starting Turner out in the 8-hole, so it’s more likely Rendon (or Zobrist?) will bat second.
I’m pretty sure Dusty lets his star player do pretty much whatever he wants, whoever that star player is.
Am I the only one remembering Giants fights in the dugout, Cubs confrontations in dugouts, etc?
Not that teams don;t have team, but Dusty’s “hands off” (the star player) mindset likely contributes.
My view of Baker was never one that ran a disciplined or tight ship. When there’s talent and winning, it’s “In Dusty We Trusty”, when there’s not … well, then he’s a bum.
I don;t know what metrics we could use to measure how much a team wins in spite of their manager, but I’d love to see it.
Unless your star player is Joey Votto. In that case, you criticize him.
From what I saw of that Cinci team was that Brandon Phillips was the star, or acted like it, not Votto.
How can you not “afford” a manager? Absurd.
Still, there’s a faint hope now that Yost will retire and Black will come home.
I think they wanted the GM contract and the manager contract to come due at the end of 2016. This signaled to Rizzo that he will likely not be resigned but they are too cheap to fire him and eat the contract–not a good situation.
Shut up, Sullivan.
It should be noted, that the Cubs had a crap bullpen in 03, and very good starters. Also they were in a VERY close race to the post season.
Dusty has either been fired (Cincy) or not retained (SF) from two jobs immediately after winning 90 or more games and making the postseason. If you’re in favor of this hire ask yourself why this has happened.
Racism happened
Do you have a national baseball column? If so Dusty would like to hire you to write his exit article after he’s done with this job. Just like Bob Nightengale & Jon Heyman did for him in 2006 & 2013.
Then why was he hired for those jobs in the first place? Wouldn’t they have passed him over, because of racism?
I was going to say the same thing… these teams are going to hire him and pay him millions of dollars and let him run their team… only to fire him because they’re racist.
You are being racist.
You should probably let Felipe Alou know he’s white.
Managers are hired to be fired; sooner or later they just wear out their welcome. Joe Torre was fired after winning 94 or more games for seven straight seasons (and 10 of 11 seasons), with 12 straight playoff appearances, six pennants and four WS titles. Baker has been fired from three teams, but he also managed for ten, four and six seasons before getting fired. In MLB managerial terms, that’s pretty good longevity.
Is Baker’s record in any way commensurate with Torre’s. Assuming as does the author that wins (at least reg season) is a metric we should use for manager ability?
Torre wasn’t fired per se. He was offered a ton of money on a 1-year contract – at a time when people were starting to clamor for replacing him – then took that 1-year aspect of it as an insult and declined.
People wear out their welcomes sometimes
Dusty leaves scorched earth wherever he goes.
i’m sure that move will somehow turn out bad for the nats!
i see nats fans are back in cocky asshole mode after a whole “miserable” ten days or so of “crap on all the good things they have because they have no concept of actual baseball despair” mode
but they are heroes and that even more self-consciously over the top schtick is just sooooooooo funny and clever
Heh. screamin_jay taking others to task for being in “cocky asshole mode” whose “self-consciously over the top schtick is just sooooooooo funny and clever.”
The internet is a beautiful thing.
i love these pretend shots at me that really prove nothing i say is actually wrong
also this pretty normal lolmets snafu is almost too regular to even bother with at this point, but i guess it’s still not as franchise-crushing as that whole natinals thing that i know you guys really had to suffer through
Dunno why I’m feeding the troll, but sure I’ll bite: in your opinion, how many years and what degree of failure are permissible before Nats fans are allowed to complain about anything?
maybe i just need more education on how BAD that 2005-11 stretch was. NATINALS OMG. JIM BOWDEN OMG
yeah that really balances out having more 80 win seasons than the o’s had for FOURTEEN YEARS IN A ROW. but you guys had it SO BAD
I am sorry you are an O’s fan. But, at this point in history, that is operator error.
what serious things do i need to talk about? seriously talking about the mets’ issues never accomplished anything. just always got dismissed as exaggeration and crazy talk and melodramatic attention/sympathy-seeking. because, after all, nothing with the mets could ever possibly approach the very real suffering of nats fans, and anyone who disagrees is a bad and probably crazy person
@Jay…. how did you find FanGraphs? It seems like you don’t really belong here.
dc fan answer to anyone taking shots at them, ignore and/or mock because it can’t possibly be true
what a fanbase!
I haven’t seen any point to being an O’s fan since Earl Weaver retired the first time.
Now there was a manager who was ahead of his time, and not behind it.
I think fans of NAT is again in the eye after the bald has a “bad” ten days or longer than “shit about all the good things that have to be because they do not know baseball great realistic prospect”
But they are heroes, and more of the picture is too funny and smart
That was definitely better than the original comment.
I guess my question in all this is how much does Bud Black think he’s worth? Is he riding the “let go by the Padres so I’m destined to win three WS with my next team” angle?
I would argue that he’s worth more than 1 year, $1.6 million. I can’t imagine any team making such a ridiculous, low ball offer to any manager it wanted to hire. For that, the Nats deserve Dusty Baker.
without basis, i suspect if it was 2 yrs/ 3.2m with incentives it may have been different. one year is pretty shitty given the very public demise of the season. what i truly do not understand is the Lerner tendency to low-ball a manager (yrs/dolars) when they have a $165m payroll. after the Williams fiasco one would imagine a better approach.
as for Baker, he fits the FRobinson/DJohnson old timers mold under which previous Natspos teams have done alright, given their rosters.
And Black is being courted by the Dodgers, where I’m guessing he’ll end up. I bet the Dodgers will pay Black (or whomever their next manager is) more than $1.6 million/year.
If this is a make-or-break year for Rizzo, then it’s also so for whatever manager he hires. Regardless of whatever length the contract reads as.
Kerry Wood was already damaged goods by the time Baker got to him. He’d already had Tommy John and had dangerous mechanics to boot. Prior may have simply been genetically unlucky, as he continued to get injured in a variety of ways. Even pitchers who get overworked can miss a season and come back okay, but Prior may have just been born with bad connective tissue.
And Dusty did nothing to help the situation by continuously leaving them in in blowouts, and compiling some huge pitch counts in the process. Why the fuck does he keep letting these guys go out there in the 8th and 9th innings of games with 5+ run leads??? It’s fucking insane.
At risk of taking a great rant too literally, a quick review of Wood’s and Prior’s game logs with the Cubs while Baker was the manager (2003-2006) indicates that the number of Wood’s 68 starts in which he was sent out for the 8th and/or 9th inning of a game with a 5+ run lead was exactly…ZERO.
The number of Prior’s 87 starts in those four years under those conditions was FIVE. Three of those starts were followed by five days of rest (after 112 pitches on 4/19/03, after 116 pitches on 4/25/03, and after another 116 pitches on 8/26/03), and in one of the other starts Prior threw only 101 pitches (on 9/10/04, the 2nd game of a doubleheader).
With due respect, it does not appear that the facts would support an allegation of mere insanity for Baker in that regard, much less for fucking insanity.
Worth noting that Jim Riggleman holds himself partially responsible for Wood’s arm issues. I’ve never heard a manager or ex-manager say anything remotely similar.
Makes me want to look at rehiring Riggleman. On the other hand, open introspection actually doesn’t seem to be an effective leadership trait. Even if myself, I do like it.
If you have to say someone “is not a bad hire”, then they’re a bad hire.
They fired Matt williams and replaced him with last decade’s version of Matt Williams.
Baker’s better than Matt Williams. He won’t treat Bryce Harper like he just brought the clap into the clubhouse.
The set of “bad hires” does not exclude “better than Matt Williams”.
The only bright side of hiring Dusty is that he will make Matt Williams look like a good manager, which few other things could ever do.
I take issue with the “Dusty Baker is a leader” argument. He could have and should have done something to prevent the 2004 Cubs from turning into a miserable, joyless, garbage dump fire of a club. That traumatic, disastrous follow up from the magic of 2003 set the franchise back for years. He couldn’t control Kent Mercker, he couldn’t control Moises Alou, he couldn’t keep a fractious clubhouse from turning on Sosa. It was a disaster and that’s the manager’s responsibility.
[Disclaimer: What follows is an emotional reaction, not a reasoned argument.]
Darth Stout hit the nail on the head. And Baker’s “leadership” was conspicuously absent at the time his team needed it most – in the minutes immediately following the Bartman play/Alou temper-tantrum.
Plus, he loves giving hundreds of at-bats to “proven veterans” like Neifi Perez and Aaron Miles, which raises questions about his ability to assess talent.
Plus, he’s thin-skinned and loves to play the victim. If he can’t handle the Chicago media, can’t wait to see how he fares in the Northeast.
Plus, what he did to Prior. 🙁
So… in conclusion, this Cubs fan agrees with the title of this article. Dusty Baker is not a bad hire; it’s an atrocious one that Nats fans will rue for the rest of their lives.
Todd Walker was carping with Steve Stone & Chip Caray. Barrett & Remlinger were picking fights with the Astros for no particular reason. That team was a mess.
From my perspective, Dusty is definitely a players’ manager. Maybe that’s what the Nationals need. Someone who will just let the players play. I know his players here in Cincy loved the guy, and you won’t hear a bad word about Dusty come out of that organization. Not a brilliant strategist, sure, but he seems to get something out of guys who you wouldn’t expect. Chris Heisey, for instance, who is crap, other than when he played for Baker.
I think Heisey played a grand total of one year without Baker as his manager (save a few PAs this year). And I think he played no worse or better that year (the year after Baker was fired) than in the prior years under Baker.
On what basis do people conclude that players’ level of effort on the field rises or falls based on whether they like “playing for” the person managing the ball club? Logic would suggest that any such effect is marginal, if it exists at all. Yet people are making arguments based on the assumption that players can’t be bothered to try to hit the ball hard unless they have deep personal affection for the manager.
Matt Williams does seem to have been pretty roundly disliked, but does anybody seriously believe that this is why the Nationals under-performed this year? If so, why didn’t this debilitating psychological burden also weigh down the efforts of Harper, Scherzer, Zimmermann, Escobar, Joe Ross, etc.?
I think Baker is likely to prove to be a poor tactical manager, since he has been in the past. I don’t know about the pitcher abuse issue or how good he is at player development. I am confident, however, that this “leader of men” nonsense is wholly irrelevant.
Jeff Sullivan writes a lot of insightful things. “Historically, players have played pretty hard for Dusty Baker,” is not one of them.
I don’t know if anyone said anything about “level of effort.” I think the point is being happy, motivated. Like working for a boss you respect v. working for one you don’t.
Actually, if you look at Fangraphs’ team stats, there are metrics for player effort, ranked by team. “Player Effort” rankings are located between “Grit” and “Clubhouse Chemistry.”
the Nats didn’t really play like a team in 2015–I’ve never seen anything like it and wouldn’t have believed it unless I watched that season.
This is the strangest article I have ever read here. Is this the Fangraphs take on manager analysis? Will we see all managers evaluated in this manner?
Isn’t this the argument presented:
1) Baker really did ride his pitchers into the ground but he stopped when the FO made him. This front office will make him not do bad things. = Good Hire.
2) He makes tactically and strategically bad decisions as to lineups, defensive position and bullpen usage. But this is not important. = Good Hire
3) He won a lot of games. That’s just great. So, managers wins are good but pitcher wins are bad? And in 20 years with 3 super talented franchises he has one NL Pennant. That is not evidence of being bad but overall wins is evidence of being good. = Good Hire
4) Guys play hard for him and that is why managers are there. Where is the proof for this? Nowhere. = Good Hire
5) His clubhouses are good and he has “it”. This jsut isn’t true. At least as far as his clubhouses were commonly being disaster areas where fights were common and the atmosphere was rank. = Good Hire
6) The Nats are talented and will win games. = Good Hire.
7) Some of his Critics use arguments that I do not like. = Good Hire
8) Teams got worse when he left. = Good Hire. But not don’t hire him in the first place or never fire him?
And why don’t you mention how he is a terrible announcer who appears to offer no real insight into the game. I am sure this is another reason he is a good hire.
“8) Teams got worse when he left. = Good Hire”
Love this point. This is a huge problem in almost all industries. Many people assume if productivity of a group declines after a manager leaves that it must be due to the loss of a good manager. Correlation does not imply causation.
“Correlation does not imply causation.”
Of course, neither does it mean this wasn’t the cause. Smug people who quote that line often forget this.
Either way you need to show your work. You don’t “prove” Dusty had no effect by saying “correlation…blah blah blah”.
Damn, it’s rare to see a comment that ends each line by demonstrating a fundamental lack of reading comprehension.
Nowhere in this piece did Sullivan call Baker a “Good Hire.”
The point is that he’s simply not the apocalyptically bad one that this comment section would have you believe, because his weak points are based on strategy, which really doesn’t matter that much for a manager, and his strong points are based on intangibles, which matter a metric fuckton.
I understand that some people here take personal offense to the idea that some aspects of a game played by human beings can’t be quantified…but some aspects of a game played by human beings can’t be quantified.
A manager’s fit matters wayyy more than his in-game strategy, because managerial strategy simply doesn’t have that big an impact, unless you do something like invent the shift.
‘Nowhere in this piece did Sullivan call Baker a “Good Hire.”’
Your retort is both pedantic and semantic, as Jeff finishes the piece by saying ‘He might even be a good hire’. So your concern is that ‘Not a Bad Hire’ (which is in the very title) is not equivalent to explicitly saying ‘Good Hire’?
I honestly think Only Glove, No Love’s comment is most succinct dissection of Sullivan’s surprisingly awful ‘analysis’. Save for a few exaggerations for the sake of flamboyancy, I don’t think any of his 8 points are misguided.
My point is that “Not a bad hire” is very, very, very different from “Good Hire,” as everyone on this website should damn well know.
Melky Cabrera is a bad LF. Ben Revere is not a bad LF. Brett Gardner is a good LF. Alex Gordon is a great LF.
The difference between “not bad” and “good” is not semantic, just like the difference between “good” and “great” is not semantic.
If you want to use a word with “ped” as the stem, “pedagogic” would probably be more appropriate.
Jeff’s point is that hiring Baker is much more along the lines of signing Ben Revere than Melky Cabrera, and that considering the unknowns with regards to our evaluation of managers, it may even be like signing Brett Gardner.
Feel free to keep working yourself up into a froth about things that no one has ever said, though!
“I understand that some people here take personal offense to the idea that some aspects of a game played by human beings can’t be quantified…but some aspects of a game played by human beings can’t be quantified.”
Exactly! What really matters is what Cool Lester Smooth declares matters, evidence be damned! Why make decisions on the limited information that you have, when Cool Lester Smooth has a catchy slogan that you can run your team with?
Define how pitch progressions impact pitcher performance.
What’s that? You can’t quantify it.
Yeah that quote you pulled is *absurd*.
Just my opinion, but this strikes me as an affirmative action hire. Manfred just a week ago was pretty defensive when asked about the possibility that MLB looked like they would have 0 African American managers in MLB. Dusty Baker himself was just quoted a couple of days before the news of him being manager that MLB is going backwards on minority hires.
Black made the most sense, no pun intended, but the Nats couldnt afford to offer him more than a 1st year arbitration makes, 1/4 of MLB average salary for a player and only twice the minimum. Thats ludicrous and only a 5 yo would believe it. They made an offer they knew would be refused, its that simple, because nobody would believe Baker was their first choice
MLB seems to have called in some favors to get the Nats to hire Baker by making that low ball offer to Black. There is not much you can say in the 65 yo Bakers favor, as this article proves.
That said, Baker is an upgrade over Williams, but pretty much anyone would be. Nats definitely underperformed this year, so he will be the beneficiary of some regression, and it may appear to turn out well despite the fact its not a good hire
I’M ON FIYAH
?t?h?i?s???t?a?k?e?
Lesson learned: use something other than fire emoji to mock insane comments next time
Some of his comment is over-the-top, but the last paragraph had me nodding my head.
or her
This actually makes perfect sense. Interpersonal relationships at the uppermost owners+Commish level do work on such a basis. You know you’re quite possibly making a 1-year-hire anyways, you’re OK anyways with that Baker guy, toss in you get a huge chit from the Commish for it, heck yes that last part carries a good amount of weight.
If high-level corporate decisions weren’t made on such bases, stadium luxury boxes would be ghost towns. Rather than filled with the business elite hobnobbing with each other.
nobody looked at this dude’s handle and figured “hmm, maybe this is just a parody”.
nah, can’t be. It’s PFT commenter, not PBT commenter!
Yes he is, his last team quit on him, and he had no problem with it.
And the team before that as well.
After 4 and 6 years, respectively.
Also no mention above of Harang being destroyed pitching in San Diego back in 2008 and then pitching on short rest against PIT – he was never the same after that nonsense.
I’ll never forget his face in the interview when BP went after CTrent, priceless ‘whatever smirk’.
I have no strong opinion on the hiring of Dusty Baker
Yup. He’s neither bad nor good. He’s just whatever.
While this post isn’t intended to necessarily defend or criticize Baker, it’s fascinating how so many in the self-styled statistical/scientific community here turn into religiously dogmatic absolutists when intangibles such as leadership, handling personalities, etc, are hypothesized.
Just because the experts haven’t figured out a way to quantify, say: Manager “A’s” general approach to players as well as encounters on a one-on-one basis; Player “B’s” receptiveness to various management styles (quantified individually for each player on the team, with adjustments for how certain personality types might affect and be affected by others); Outside Circumstance “C’s” effects on all of that (modified by all of the other potentially relevant outside circumstances); etc; that does *not* mean that those variables don’t exist. It also does not prove that the variables do exist, either, of course. But shouting down the concept (“hypothesis”) of intangibles, simply because you cannot prove *or disprove* their potential relevance, that’s closer to the *unscientific* approach of shouting down the people who, say, questioned the “established fact” that the earth was flat.
IMHO, Mr. Sullivan should be commended for posting an article that goes outside of the spreadsheet box. Advanced metrics have helped to increase understanding in many ways, but they do not cover everything. Statistics (whether baseball, economic, whatever) can provide an illusion of being more definite about a topic than they actually are. Good statisticians know to look at what the numbers *don’t* say, as well as what they do say. Intangibles in baseball are hypotheses; while they have not necessarily been proven to exist in a bottom-line way, *they have not been proven to be irrelevant, either.*
Again, this post doesn’t necessarily defend or criticize a hiring of Baker. However, most of us are sitting on the sidelines, without any relevant MLB experience, and in some cases without any real-world managerial experience. A community of “elevated thinkers” such as this can do better than simply sitting back and chortling over our 100% perfect evaluations of Baker’s in-game decisions. There can be more variables in play. Come up with a meaningful way to measure the hypotheses, or to *definitively* disprove their relevance, and *then* you will be thinking in an advanced manner.
I agree with much of what you say. But here’s an attempt to explain what you’re observing: One of this forum’s principle tenets is to use data and logic to support your arguments. To me, The “Dusty is a leader of men and gets the best out of his players” argument uses neither. What’s it based on? Speaking as a Cubs fan, I certainly couldn’t tell you. But his tenure was definitely not drama-free…
Yeah, the problem is not that the author thought outside the box. The problem is that he made a poor argument for his position.
Thank you, ben. As I think you know, I am not necessarily advocating the “Dusty is a leader of men and gets the best out of his players” argument. However, I am advocating against opposite extremes (that others, not you, have expressed).
For example, it is not using data and logic to say that Wood, Prior, and/or Harang were injured while Baker was their manager, and therefore Baker is a butcher of otherwise healthy and infallible arms. That’s using circumstantial evidence, and it is the opposite of using data and logic.
Perhaps some managers (e.g. Yost and Collins, Baker to his supporters) actually can bring management/personality benefits that, in a cost-benefit way, could outweigh their batting orders. And maybe not. But these aren’t unreasonable variables to consider as hypotheses. To simply say (as some others have indicated, for example) “Batting Order!” doesn’t seem very devoted to the use of data (including non-quantified variables) and logic, either.
Where is “Serbian to Vietnamese to French and back” when you need him?
While this article does not have to defend or criticize Baker, it’s fascinating how many statistics the scientific community took over the religious conversion of the Orthodox dogma invisible as leadership, personality, lunch, etc..
Just because the experts have not found a way to quantify, said access to the principal, “and” for the players, as well as meetings on the basis of “one on one”; Players meet the “B” different styles of Management (quantify separately for each player on the team, with adaptation to the only man can act and others); External circumstances “C” the effect of it (modified and complemented by any event that can be associated with the outside); etc..; If this does not happen * * indicates that there are no variables. Also, does not prove that there has been no change, no, of course. But yelling object (“theory”), the concept of an invisible, simply because I can’t prove or disprove what means their potential *, which is closer to visit * nenauian * people screaming, he said, “the fact established” that the Earth was flat.
Comfortable, we should reward Sullivan has published an article that goes outside the box of the workbook. Advanced statistics help promote understanding in many ways, but they do not cover everything. Statistics (baseball, economy, whatever) can provide a more accurate illusion of an actual theme. Further statistics to look at the numbers * * would say, how they say it. Baseball’s invisible things theory; Though not necessarily prove to be on the bottom line, they proved irrelevant, UReither. *
Again, this doesn’t have to be protected, and not criticise leased Baker. However, most of us were sitting on the bench, there is no relevant experience in Major League Baseball and in some cases have no experience of management in the real world. “A high-thinkers”, because it may be best to just sit and kikozelj through decision 100% Baker perfect games. There can be many variables at play. Find a logical way to measure theory, or safely dismissed their significance, and then * you think creatively.
That is a flattering attempt at a parody of writing style, thank you. Since comments that exceed 140 characters should not be difficult for readers of this forum to handle, you have constructively demonstrated that you don’t have any arguments against the *substantive* points that were raised.
[argues with machine translation of self] I wonder why no one is taking my points to heart
Nice article!
Are you still dating Dusty’s daughter?
Holy crap, there are a lot of comments already, nobody will see this. But it’s germane!
I followed the Giants in the Baker era and I remember somebody wrote a piece analyzing Baker then, and came up with statistical evidence that veteran hitters perform better under Baker. This was probably (but not certainly) on Baseball Prospectus.
One can conjecture why: Baker likes veterans, makes them comfortable, puts them in position to succeed. I can tell you that I was not a Baker fan and if I was in charge of the 2002 Giants, they would have won the World Series. But if I were in charge of the 2002 Giants, I probably couldn’t have prevented Jeff Kent from shooting Barry Bonds.
Guy was a stud 5-6WAR starter before a relief inning in which Baker had him pitch on 3 days rest because a game went to extra innings, in May!
http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2011/02/12/aaron-harang-says-struggles-stemmed-from-2008-relief-appearance/
Actually, in the linked article, Harang *didn’t* explicitly blame Baker. An actual quotation from Harang, in that linked article, is, “I started to change my arm angle to compensate for the fatigue, and that’s when my forearm bothered me.”
So, alternately, in hindsight, perhaps Harang could have taken responsibility for his own well-being by reporting his fatigue in 2008, instead of changing his arm angle and damaging his arm. Perhaps that was even Harang’s point in the linked article. In that article, at least, Harang *doesn’t* blame Baker.
“Over 20 years, he’s won about 53% of the time, and that’s telling. That suggests that Baker has been able to pull out better-than-average performance.”
It does?
I know, right? Preposterous from a lead Fangraphs author. Preposterous.
Worst fangraphs article since this one:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/qa-kevin-towers-diamondbacks-gm/
Holy shit, comments!
The notion that a black man can manage the baseball men is controversial.
Dusty once said during his Cubs tenure that putting men on base can be unimportant and merely “clogging up the bases.” I believe this was during the season he kept batting Neifi Perez towards the top of the order. This will always be the dumbest thing I have ever heard a person, all alone a manager, say about baseball.
It’s a bad hire because it displays a tremendous last of what they are seeking: leadership. They completely mishandled this hiring.
Let’s just assume Bud Black was in fact their first choice — they decline to hire hime based on salary? The player’s salary was about $160 million for 2015, and you are going to (1) not pay the manager 2% of that (speculating that $3.2 million would be enough for Black); (2) allow these negotiations to happen at a stage in the process when everyone knows what is happening so that you (a) look CHEAP and (b) let everyone, including Dusty himself and the players he has to manage, know that Dusty is not your first choice ? How does that set Dusty up to succeed ?
Salary should not be a factor as it is such a marginal cost compared to the rest of the operations, but if it is there are MUCH better ways to handle it. It’s really not that hard to have the pubic narrative be “we are down to two and will bring them back for further talks,” have the salary discussion in hypotheticals, then hire who you want including salary as a factor if saving $1 or $2 million somehow matters to you more than getting the right manager after the entire town knew your previous hire was a cluster fire in 2015.
Or you can do it the Nats way and make it clear to everyone that the problems with the organization were not just the manager.
I think walks are overrated unless you can run… 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 they’re clogging up the bases for somebody who can run.
It’s called hitting, and it ain’t called walking. Do you ever see the top 10 walking? You see top 10 batting average. A lot of those top 10 do walk. But the name of the game is to hit.
On-base percentage is good, but RBIs are better.
Yes, that’s an actual Dusty quote.
Wow. Very telling given that no anti-saber baseball people have had successful managing careers.
The thing is…while a walk with the bases open is equivalent to a single, it’s much worse than a single with a man on second would be, as it not only fails to score the runner, but creates a force out at third.
From Tango’s RE Matrix:
With a man on second and no outs, there’s a .637 chance of at least one run scoring.
With men on first and second and no outs, there’s a .643 chance of at least one run scoring.
With a man on third and one out, there’s a .674 chance of at least one run scoring.
So, in a one run or tie game in the late innings, a bunt or a grounder to the right side may very well be more valuable than a walk with a man on second and no outs, especially considering the added possibility of an error.
If it’s tied up in the ninth, a bunt or a grounder to the right side is definitely more valuable than a walk in that situation.
In 2013, Brandon Phillips produced 19 runs more for the Reds than his WAR says he did.
There’s more than just starters to worry about. Felix Rodriguez, Robb Nen, Scott Eyre. All were abused by Baker and were largely ineffective after. He picks a couple guys and just runs them into the ground. Between 1993 and 2011, his teams were above the league average in pitches per start in 7 of 18 years with three of those years coming in the first three years of that period.
Carlos Zambrano averaged 109 pitches per start from 03-06 and threw at least 100 pitches in 79% of his starts. He had a 3.14 ERA and 8 K/9 during those years. The rest of his career he went 4.03 and 7. Livan Hernandez had similar issues with effectiveness at an early age. Russ Ortiz also.
Dusty Baker picks his pony and runs him.
Is that the same Livan Hernandez who had 11 starts of 130+ pitches during his age 23 season with the Marlins, in 1998, before he joined Baker and SF? And who led the NL in IP in each of the three seasons immediately *after* he left Baker/SF?
Is that the same Russ Ortiz who led the NL in Games Started in each of the two seasons immediately *after* he left Baker/SF? While playing for the legendary pitching/coaching geniuses with the Atlanta Braves?
Is that the same Carlos Zambrano whose 2007 workload, the season *after* Baker left the Cubs, included throwing 100+ pitches in 79.4% of his starts, and averaging 108.5 pitches per start (i.e. substantially the same usage as asserted under Baker)?
Eyre was a 36 year-old LHRP specialist, playing in the PED testing era, when the Cubs traded him to Philly mid-2008. While already near the end of his career, Eyre went on to make four scoreless appearances in the 2008 and 2009 World Series. Etc.
The above posting isn’t unique to this comment section, but some fans pick their narrative and run with it.
Dodgers stats GM Farhan Zaidi comes out and admits that one of the biggest parts of managing is club house related. FanGraphs writes an article suggesting Dusty Baker is not a bad hire. It’s freezing hell, man, but the kids are learning.
Andrew Friedman clearly hates analytics! That monster!
Seriously, though. This comment section is hilarious.
I really do admire how FG’s, and associated websites, are implicitly built on the concept of being open-minded, because that’s the only way some of the statistics and concepts preached here will be spread, but when it comes to something like hiring Dusty Baker, a well-reasoned article (that I still, ultimately, disagree with, but can appreciate the effort) is met with some of the most close-minded reactions one can imagine.
Well done, FG commenters.
“Close-minded”? We KNOW how bad a manager this man is, and we kept open minds on him until he proved to us just how bad a manager he actually was. And that’s leaving out his collection of inane anti-sabermetric quotations, which should permanently disqualify him from any position in baseball forever.
Don’t confuse a correct conclusion that has been established with “close-mindedness.” I also know that one plus one will never equal twelve, but that doesn’t make me “close-minded.”
Prediction: whether this is a good hire or bad one, Dusty Baker wins manager of the year in 2016 while the analytics community (of which I consider myself a part) rails on his lineups, batting order, and bullpen usage.
The Nationals are likely to improve significantly next year just by having better luck in health and a jump in wins is pretty much the primary criteria for MoY.
Especially when you factor in all the credit he’ll get for ‘improving the clubhouse’.
None of which he will deserve.
“None of which he’ll deserve.”
Great example of not being close-minded.
No need to see what actually transpires, just form an opinion ahead of time.
From that nonsense I gather that you’ve missed his entire career.
The Nats will regress to the mean next season and will thereby improve no matter if Bud Black, Dusty Baker, Joe Biden or I are the manager. If it’s Dusty (ugh), then he will unjustly be given the credit by the idiot media; that’s how the media explain things that happen in baseball that they don’t understand. Since everyone who has every seen Dusty manage knows that it couldn’t possibly be his in-game management or how he handles a pitching staff (since he does both like a Labrador Retriever on acid), they’ll have to credit him with “improving the clubhouse,” which he won’t have done either.
I long for the day when baseball reporters will have to pass a sabermetrics literacy test to be hired.
Bright side for Nats fans — if Baker really does rely on his top SPs as much as the armchair pitching coaches and sabermetric medical researchers say, then at least he won’t shut down an ace like Strasburg during a pennant race and postseason. Maybe the Nats will even win a NLDS for a change!
No. They went and hired Mike Maddux so Dusty can’t kill their pitchers. And if you think Maddux is going to run the staff how Dusty wants you are seriously mistaken.
Great hire. He hasn’t even started and WAS is making hires to limit the damage.
I bet they hire his entire staff for him. And surround him with skilled people who will ignore him and let him create surplus value from clubhouse atmosphere.
You guys, basketball is on
I was prompted to read the article after reading an article in the New Yorker, (http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/dusty-and-jimi) and only decided to leave a comment after reading all 224 comments left previously.
I am of the same generation and the same age as Johnny B. Baker. Although the pigmentation of our skin is different, we listen to, and obviously appreciated, the same music. Like most others of our generation, I smoked pot. Unlike some, I inhaled, because that was the purpose of smoking pot. If I still smoked I would probably enjoy sharing a splif with Dusty while listening to Jimi. Unfortunately, I do neither now because as one ages one changes. Dusty sounds like the kinda guy with whom I would having a beer, or two, with at a bar while talking music, and baseball.
I lived in Louisville from 2009 to 2011 and watched many Reds games because Louisville broadcasted those games in lieu of the closer Cardinals games. I watched as the Reds went from middle of the pack to first place and back to also-ran. Dusty constantly left me scratching my head by his moves and not just his antiquated theory of baseball. I vividly recall Brandon Phillips standing far off second base grinning from ear to ear while gesticulating to someone in the stands as he was Soooooooo picked off…I seem to recall the ball waiting on him when he finally realized he was playing baseball. Mr. Phillips remained in the game after his brain cramp with me thinking that would not have happened “back in the day.” And yes, I will admit wondering if he was not taken out because he was Dusty’s pet. If there is any racism involved in my thinking I will leave that for others to decide. I did not dwell on it at the time, but will admit my thoughts on racial attitudes have changed during the course of my life, especially after reading that in America the difference between the white and black races is that to white people nothing is race related, while to black people everything is considered race related. What part race played in Dusty leaving BP in the game I cannot say; only Dusty can say.
Until reading the comments I was unaware there were no African American managers in MLB. Why should it matter? How many unqualified managers are in MLB? I met a wonderful woman this year who happens to be an African American who told me she had grown up in a house in which no one was allowed to mention the race of anyone of whom they discussed. Would it not be better to judge a man not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character?
I have read much sabermetric material since first finding Bill James and his Abstracts, and my thinking on the game of baseball has changed considerably. For example, off of the top of my head, if you look at Pete Rose in 1983 you will find that season is sandwiched between two much better, more typical, “Pete Rose” type seasons, hitting wise. You will also see that his BABIP was much lower in 1983. They did not fall in that year for Charley the Hustler…Something similar happened with Chris Johnson with the Braves in 2013 as his BABIP was almost .400, so when the Braves FO (or FIPs-Fools In Power, as I thought of them) signed the guy to a huge contract I said it was a mistake.
I recall Bill James writing about how the men coaching and managing baseball continue to think of the game as it was “back in their day.” He used the example of the coaches telling outfielder’s to “use both hands,” which was necessary “back in their day” because the gloves were small. But because the gloves were much larger, and an outfielder could make a better throw using only one hand to make the catch, they should NOT have been teaching the players to “use both hands.”
Dusty seems to be caught in some kind of time-warp and he is still teaching mid twentieth century baseball to twenty first century players, and he manages the same way. The FIPs in the FO of the Nationals must want someone who is a throw back to an earlier time, thinking that is just what their team needs. Only time will tell, but my guess is that Dusty is the wrong man for this time in the evolution of the team.
”We can not solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them’‘–Albert Einstein