September 5, 2006

Should Dusty Baker Come Back?

After twisting in the wind for most of the year after a dismal start, Dusty Baker was given a reprieve by Jim Hendry allowing him to finish out the season.  But should he be brought back next year? That’s the question on everyone’s mind and most observers and fans are saying no way. 

Let’s take a realistic evaluation of the job he has done.  In his first season, he had the team five outs away from playing in their first World Series since 1945.  In 2004, despite an extraordinary amount of injuries, he kept the team in the race until the final weekend, leading them to 89 wins.  That was the first time in thirty years that they had achieved back to back winning seasons. 

In 2005, the team finished a disappointing 79-83.  But was it really a disappointment considering Kerry Wood and Mark Prior were both out for extended periods of time and the Cubs had a young and ineffective bullpen and no lead-off hitter.  Let’s not forget that Nomar Garciaparra went down early with an injury and Todd Walker also missed a month of the season last year.  The outfield was in shambles with Todd Hollingsworth and Jason Dubois sharing left starting the season, Corey Patterson self destructing in center, and Jeromy Burnitz doing a mediocre job in right. 

That was not a very good team, especially with the injuries, so the record reflects what was on the field. 

Let’s now get to the real reason everybody’s calling for his head: the 2006 season.  The club has played miserably for most of the year. While this has been the year that just about everybody has a shot at the playoffs in the National League, the Cubs don’t.

The question that has to be answered is if he was given a playoff roster to work with to start the year.  If you knew before the season that Kerry Wood and Mark Prior would combine for a total of two wins, would you still think this was a playoff team?  Would you perhaps question why Jim Hendry didn’t pick up at least one healthy starter in the off-season and not another health question in Wade Miller, who has yet to throw a pitch for the Cubs.  Having seven minor leaguers start about a third of your games is not a recipe for success, especially since most of them were not very highly regarded before the season.

What if you knew Derek Lee would play only thirty four games so far this year due to injury?  While you couldn’t anticipate Lee getting hurt, you could have had an adequate back-up or minor leaguer in the system ready to step up like the Phillies did last year with Ryan Howard when Jim Thome went down. 

Several players had poor starts and didn’t start playing well until the last couple of months like Juan Pierre and Aramis Ramirez.  Is it Baker’s fault if the players don’t play up to their potential? You can blame him for fundamentals if you want, but are most of the players he was given fundamentally sound to begin with?

I think Dusty Baker takes a lot of blame in areas he has no control over.  Now before you call me a Dusty apologist, I don’t agree with everything he does, and I also sometimes question moves he makes or his willingness to play young players.

In a 162 game schedule, any manager in baseball would be open to questioning his decisions at times.  That goes with the job.