We wouldn't even have been in the playoffs in 2015 without Hinch, which was necessary to start destroying the Yankees soul.
I think it's silly to evaluate a manager by the performance of the team. Would you do the same for a player? Better to just evaluate specific decisions or actions taken by the manager.
Lol, as if it was a guaranteed championship if he made the decision you wanted him to lol The two are not comparable, but johnnie lovers don't think straight
A lot of what a manager does - motivation, club house morale, developing youngsters etc we have zero visibility into, and that matters more than in-game decisions.
You can't evaluate that because we have no viz. That's why you look at results. Team results have been pretty damn good with Baker at the helm. We are defending WS champs for crying out loud.
Did he really? He started on the Giants in 1993, he was able to stick around for 10 seasons. Those Giants teams were not loaded over the course of his 10 year stint. He then went to Chicago, the team literally finished 67-95 the year before Baker got there, then they went on to win the division and make the NLCS in his first year. Then he went to Cincinnati, that team had 2 years under .500 in his first two seasons there, and then they won a division title in 2 of the next 3 years. They have only made the Playoffs once in the 10 years since Dusty left, and that was during the COVID year. Nationals I would say were pretty talented and he made the Playoffs both years but failed in the Playoffs Then he's at the Astros, yes they are loaded but the results are good since he's been here, as expected. Now you want to talk about Joe Torre, now THAT'S a loaded team (Jeter, rivera, posada etc). Dusty didn't have loaded teams until he joined Washington and Houston.
How can you possibly apportion the responsibility owed to Dusty for that result? Simply because the team performed well? How do you know the team wouldn't have performed even better with a different manager? Maybe that team wins 110 games with Bo Porter as the manager. It would be impossible to say one way or the other. Like I said, imagine if you applied that kind of value to a given player (maybe they were a great teammate and motivated their fellow players to perform better) - it would be absurd.
Ironically with Cincy, he benched his starter position players so much they dropped from the playoff race while saying there "was no need for urgency." https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...-baker-fired-cincinnati-reds-reasons/2922315/
So you are telling me getting Bonds his first year then signing Jeff Kent in his prime didn't load up a team? SF front office helped him out A LOT during those ten years. Felipe Alou and Bruce Bochy did more the Giants being champions and developing players than Dusty ever did.
I do wonder how history would have changed if we didn't let LMJ start on short rest back in 2021 postseason... https://bleacherreport.com/articles/367793-got-young-pitching-keep-it-away-from-dusty-baker In 2003 Baker took over as manager of the Chicago Cubs after a successful run as manager of the San Francisco Giants, which saw him lead the Giants to a World Series in 2002. At the time, the Cubs had two of the most promising young pitchers in baseball in Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. Both were considered potential aces, both threw gas, and both were strikeout pitchers. Baker rode them hard for the entire season, sometimes allowing them to throw 120-125 pitches per start, something that baseball's medical professionals urge against for young pitchers due to the tendency for the arm to get injured through overuse. Let's take a look at how the two prospects fared under Baker: In 2004, Kerry Wood went on the DL for two months with a strained triceps. In 2005, Wood underwent shoulder surgery in August and missed the rest of the season, and in Spring Training 2006, he again incurred arm injuries. In June 2006 he was placed on the DL with what was later diagnosed as a partially torn rotator cuff and missed the remainder of the season. The story wasn't much different for Mark Prior, who was the most heralded college pitching prospect ever. He was Strasburg before Strasburg was. In 2003, Prior finished third in the NL Cy Young voting, posting an 18-6 record for the Cubs. In 2004, he started the season on the DL, missing two months for what was listed as an Achilles tendon injury, but some have speculated was actually an arm injury. After coming off the DL, he didn't pitch up to expectations which led to even more speculation about his arm. In 2005, Prior took a line drive off his elbow from the bat of Brad Hawpe, resulting in a compression fracture. In 2006, Prior went on the DL with tendonitis not once, not twice, but three times. He finished the season with a 1-6 record and a 7.21 ERA. In 2007, after having noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews perform exploratory surgery, it was discovered that Prior had structural damage in his shoulder. After one start in the minors, Prior underwent season ending shoulder surgery to repair the damage. He would never pitch in a Cubs uniform again. After leaving the Cubs to be manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Baker was again given another young star pitcher to ruin. Edinson Volquez was traded to the Reds in December 2007 as part of the Josh Hamilton trade with Texas. During the 2008 season, he posted a 17-6 record with a 3.21 ERA. Sound familiar? In 2009, he posted a 4-2 record with a 4.35 ERA before being shutdown on June 1 in preparation for Tommy John ligament replacement surgery. Needless to say, having young pitchers maintain such large pitch counts and high innings counts is not the smartest thing to do. Sports medicine specialists have been saying this for years, but Dusty Baker has continued to ignore them. Baker prefers to do things "old school" or rather, to do things his way, ignore the people who know about such things, and ruin the careers of some of the most promising young pitchers in baseball. He once said that "high on base percentage guys just clog up the bases for the other batters unless they know how to run." That's almost as idiotic as saying that the offensive line just gets in the way of the running back unless they can keep up with him.
Lol, as if it was a guaranteed championship if he made the decision you wanted him to lol The two are not comparable, but johnnie lovers don't think straight was a general comment, not directed at anyone in particular Well, wasn’t directed at him anyway lol
Last year when Judge walked us off again, when asked if he thought about walking him he said “no, that’s not good for baseball” Totally ignoring the fact that he isn’t commissioner, he is the manager for the Houston Astros
Jim will bring him back for another year. Moldy(FA) will come back too. Another year of Musty & Moldy.
It better not happen. The only way I would be ok with it is if Dusty was fired and maldy was DFA’d if Maldy was ever played without the express written consent of the Nerd Cave.
Gun to my head, I bet Dusty is back but this is it for Moldy. He's just declined too much defensively to bring back at this point as he's likely to just get even worse next season.
