Baker critics don't let facts get in the way...

[98NCCalum]

http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/story/10410305

 

My favorite lines from this article....

 

A winning percentage of .527 is better than horrible, and so is 10 in-contention finishes in 14 years. "Horrible," when used without any statistical or analytical backup, only means that the user of the word doesn't like him.

 

He did ride hot hands, true, but teams in contention always do so. Was he predisposed toward high pitch counts? Yes. Is that good? As a rule, no. Is there a trail of destroyed pitchers in his wake? Not really, once you see that Prior and Wood aren't good examples of Baker's alleged "abuse." In other words, shut up about Aaron Harang and Homer Bailey.

 

Is Dusty Baker a good hire then? The short answer is he isn't bad at all. The more involved answer is, that depends on Adam Dunn and Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips and Harang and Bailey and Wayne Krivsky and Bob Castellini.

 

In other words, when evaluating Baker, trust nobody and nothing except (a) your own lying eyes, and (b) the standings. That last one is a handy and much underrated tool for this sort of thing.

[gametime]

Pass me a toothpick and lets rock...

[stickymitts]

Problem is, there's not a stat to measure arm burn out. Let it go 98...

 

I'm over it, we'll see...

[cooperstown]

Good article, but I'm not entirely too sure about the "10 in-contention finishes in 14 years" statement. I suppose "in contention" is rather ambiguous. I count 7 out of 14 seasons, with the following being "non in-contention" years:

 

1995 - SF finished 11 games back

1996 - SF finished 23 games back

1998 - SF finished 9.5 games back

1999 - SF finished 14 games back

2004 - CHI finished 16 games back

2005 - CHI finished 21 games back

2006 - CHI finished 17.5 game back

 

But he most certainly had his successes. Just not certain that "10 out of 14" is accurate.

[98NCCalum]

Let it go 98.....

Hey, I didn't write the article.

[stickymitts]

Hey, I didn't write the article.

 

Point was, the "...don't let facts get in the way..." thread title is misleading, IMO. One side has statistics and the other side has perception, all of which may have nothing to do with Dusty Baker...FWIW...

 

I'll just wait and see. I have liked what I've heard in his interviews but again, we've heard some of this crap before...

[98NCCalum]

Point was, the "...don't let facts get in the way..." thread title is misleading, IMO. One side has statistics and the other side has perception, all of which may have nothing to do with Dusty Baker...FWIW...

 

I'll just wait and see. I have liked what I've heard in his interviews but again, we've heard some of this crap before...

That's the title of the article, I didn't write it.

[mexitucky]

Problem is, there's not a stat to measure arm burn out. Let it go 98...

 

I'm over it, we'll see...

 

I don't think that those words are in his vocabulary. Before I go off and buy 15 wristbands and let my boys batboy my softball team, I want to see what Dusty does without A) A very large payroll; B) A superstar in his prime; and C) any quality pitching depth. This is the best hire that the Reds could have made for the money that they were going to spend. I just personally find Dusty Baker annoying.

[akw4572]

http://cbs.sportsline.com/columns/story/10410305

 

My favorite lines from this article....

 

A winning percentage of .527 is better than horrible, and so is 10 in-contention finishes in 14 years. "Horrible," when used without any statistical or analytical backup, only means that the user of the word doesn't like him.

 

He did ride hot hands, true, but teams in contention always do so. Was he predisposed toward high pitch counts? Yes. Is that good? As a rule, no. Is there a trail of destroyed pitchers in his wake? Not really, once you see that Prior and Wood aren't good examples of Baker's alleged "abuse." In other words, shut up about Aaron Harang and Homer Bailey.

 

Is Dusty Baker a good hire then? The short answer is he isn't bad at all. The more involved answer is, that depends on Adam Dunn and Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips and Harang and Bailey and Wayne Krivsky and Bob Castellini.

 

In other words, when evaluating Baker, trust nobody and nothing except (a) your own lying eyes, and (b) the standings. That last one is a handy and much underrated tool for this sort of thing.

 

Sorry, but I'll take Baseball Prospectus' opinion over a beatwriter at CBS sportsline, the charts don't show up in a copy and paste, but I can tell you, he lead the world in Pitcher Abuse Points. I wouldn't trust him with young arms. He'd be under fairly strict organizational guidelines if I hired him:

 

October 15, 2007, 03:28 PM ET

Blame Dusty?

 

by Nate Silver

 

Yesterday I was on MLB Radio with guest hosts Will Carroll and Joe Sheehan and they asked me what I thought Dusty Baker’s hiring in Cincinnati would mean for young pitchers like Homer Bailey and Johnny Cueto. My first instinct — and what I said on the air — is that this was something of a red herring. I talked a few times with senior people in the Cubs organization in 2003 and 2004 while Dusty was managing the club, and my perception was that they were very much on board with how he was handling his pitching staff. And it probably ought to be that way, because if Dusty was doing something that they were unhappy with, the team’s executives were not doing their job — Dusty should either have gotten a tersely-worded memo or, as a last resort, he should have been fired. I also cited the counterexample of Terry Francona, who went from being a first-class abuser of pitchers in Philadelphia to a model citizen in Boston.

 

I decided to pull up some data today, expecting to confirm that conclusion. Since 1997, I identified 28 instances in which a manager spent his first full season managing a new club, and that manager had spent a full season managing a different MLB club from 1996 onward. I then compared that team’s Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP) total that season to (i) the manager’s last full season when he did NOT manage that club, and (ii) the team’s last full season when it did NOT have that manager. The idea is to see whether it’s managerial philosophy or team philosophy that drives high pitch counts.

 

Here are those results.

 

(Note: Pitcher Abuse Points are denominated in 1000s)

 

Immediately we identify both some rules and some exceptions. Dusty Baker had extremely high pitch counts with the Cubs in 2003; the same had been true when he was with the Giants in 2002. Francona’s pitch counts, on the other hand, dropped radically in Boston from what they had been in Philadelphia. And then we have Jim Leyland. In 1999, he imported a habit of pitcher abuse from Florida to Colorado, implying managerial responsibility. But by 2006, when he took over the Tigers, he was a careful handler of pitchers, just about as careful as Alan Trammell had been in 2005, implying team responsibility. Overall, the correlation in PAP with the manager’s previous season (for a different team) was .415, and with a team’s previous season (with a different manager) was .416. In other words, responsibility would appear to be a 50:50 proposition, divided right down the middle.

 

Pitcher usage patterns have changed significantly within the past decade, however, and this has the potential to skew the results. In 1996, the average team accumulated about 430,000 Pitcher Abuse Points; by 2007, that total was down to 97,000. And so, I re-ran this data on a normalized basis, adjusting the PAP totals for the average and standard deviation of the year in question. Dusty Baker’s performance with the 2003 Cubs, for example, now registers as a +3.32, meaning three-plus standard deviations above the norm (still very high, in other words). Here is what that data looks like:

 

This presents a rather different picture. The correlation in PAP with the manager’s previous season now increases slightly to .451. But the correlation with the team’s previous season under different management falls to .138, meaning that it barely registers. In fact, if we put both variables into a regression analysis, we find that the team variable is no longer statistically significant. Only the manager’s preferences — and the norms of the era — seem to count.

 

So empirically, most of the responsibility for pitcher usage does fall on the shoulders of the manager — which means that now might be a good time to trade Homer Bailey in a fantasy league. The moral responsibility, however, might be another matter. It is organizations, after all, who are responsible for hiring their managers. And when you hire a manager like Dusty Baker, one of two things ought to be true: either you’ve considered his philosophy on pitch counts and signed off on it, or you’ve given him the Birds, Bees and Labrums lecture and expect him to change his ways. If the careers of Bailey and Cueto are ruined by high pitch counts, it will be Dusty who pulled the trigger — but the Reds who hired the assassin.

[stickymitts]

I don't think that those words are in his vocabulary. Before I go off and buy 15 wristbands and let my boys batboy my softball team, I want to see what Dusty does without A) A very large payroll; B) A superstar in his prime; and C) any quality pitching depth. This is the best hire that the Reds could have made for the money that they were going to spend. I just personally find Dusty Baker annoying.

 

Isn't Torre the only manager that makes more than $3.5 mil?

[letabrotherspeak]

After listening to his presser, I feel a little bit better about this hire.

However, the "player coach" tag is a concern. This can be an issue if you do not have strong leaders in the clubhouse.

If he comes in a coddles the Griffey's and Dunn's then the clubhouse will not improve.

Someone needs to step up and take control of the clubhouse...I can't really see someone doing that with Griffey in the clubhouse

Who would be ideal leaders in the clubhouse? Hatteberg? Phillips?

I really don't know, but I think if Griffey will be really shopped this winter even with him being close to 600HR.

[HammerTime]

You guys have convinced me I am on board now too. :irked:

[LRCW]

You guys have convinced me I am on board now too. :irked:

 

 

We want you to be on board happily, not begrudgingly.

[98NCCalum]

If he comes in a coddles the Griffey's and Dunn's then the clubhouse will not improve.

 

I really don't know, but I think if Griffey will be really shopped this winter even with him being close to 600HR.

1. How do you know Dunn is a bad clubhouse guy? From what I hear is not at all.

 

2. How do you know they haven't tried shopping Griffey for years and found no takers? From what I hear they have.

[malachicrunch]

1. How do you know Dunn is a bad clubhouse guy? From what I hear is not at all.

 

2. How do you know they haven't tried shopping Griffey for years and found no takers? From what I hear they have.

 

Wasn't Dunn one of the barcalounger boys?