BP dissects a Dusty ruined year

[JGalt73]

Article, sorry subscription only content

 

BP has an excellent article today on the reasons for the season's demise. Much of it is contained in the many Dusty threads on this board. (It is subsciption only content. If you haven't got it - you should!)

 

Highlights:

 

1) "The gap between Cubdom and contention is wide, but so much of it is contained in three Baker mistakes: using Neifi Perez and Corey Patterson atop the lineup, refusing to play his better left fielders, not keeping Rusch in the rotation."

 

2) "Baker continues to show little understanding of how an offense works, of how to fit his players' skills to the proper roles. Worse, he shows little desire to learn these things, making the same mistakes repeatedly while taking little criticism for his decisions, and deflecting what criticism comes in a manner that has nothing to do with baseball."

 

Nice to see it spelled out - with examples.

[treebird]

oooooooooh

 

i havent been to bp yet today. i'm really excited now. and if it's a joe sheehan column, well, i may do a dance or something.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

oooooooooh

 

i havent been to bp yet today. i'm really excited now. and if it's a joe sheehan column, well, i may do a dance or something.

 

It is.

[YearofDaCubs]

I can't believe that Dusty is still the manager of the Chicago Cubs. he should be dropped like a bad habit.

[ltb]

that was a good article, but nothing we didn't already know.

[TheDude]

that was a good article, but nothing we didn't already know.

It's different when a respected baseball writer says something like this, than when amateur manager-wanna-be fans like us say it.

[cubbieinexile]

While I have never liked Dusty Baker, I do think it is a tad bit wrong to blame this season on Baker. This team just wasn't a good team from the beginning. The team the Cub front office assembled was a highly flawed team to begin with. True Dusty wasn't perfect or close to it in using that team but in hindsight this team would be lucky to win half their games even with the greatest manager of all time.

 

Lets look at Neifi and Corey. Corey has been dreadful from the beginning so we can replace him with Hairston. Not doing so is a strike against Baker. Having Hairston on the team would be a plus for Hendry, in that he had a perfectly good back up for a risk. What about Neifi? Well Neifi was never meant to be a starter bu he was used as a starter because of Nomar. His first month was great so any other option would have cost the Cubs runs and potential wins. After the first month he is horrendous but what other options were there? Todd Walker? Sure he could have played at the top of the order but he was out until May 25th. So then who is going to play at the top, and how many runs would they have created? How much of a difference would it make? So who is going to play SS and who is going to play #1 or #2? Everybody else on that team is either way too good for those spots or way to fragile for those spots.

 

Complaining about LF and which one to use is like complaining about which pile of poop smells better. They were all mediocre choices and the difference between the best and worst amounts to a hill of beans.

 

Rusch's starts were against some mediocre teams not saying that means he is no good but his stats in that department are somewhat skewed because of that.

 

 

For this team to be in contention means that it would have had to at least be in the running for 88 wins or so and realistically at least 90 for it to be truly in contention. This team probably ends up winning about 75 games. Roughly a 15 game difference in the standings. I personally don't think if you were to add up all the runs that Baker cost the Cubs with his odd moves it would add up to 15 wins worth. Did he cost this team some wins? You bet, but I think the big share of the blame should go to the front office.

 

The front office has shown a rather depressing pattern of repeatably making the same mistakes over and over. The Cubs continually hand out bad contracts that hamstring them and then further handcuff themselves when they try to get rid of the contract or are forced to play them because of it. The Cubs continually rely on fragile players who have shown throughout their career that they cannot be relied on to stay in the lineup. Put the two together also then forces the Cubs put together a weak bench which is extremely shallow when it comes to plugging holes. The Cubs front office routinely shows a lack of confidence in its ability to develop relievers or in finding gems on the scrapheap which then forces them to go out and spend big bucks for relievers of even more dubious quality.

 

This front office was relying on Kerry Wood, Nomar Garciaparra, Corey Patterson, Latroy Hawkins, Mike Remlinger, and others to play, and to play healthy and at a level that was unlikely to be able to be maintained by these players. I look at the front offices choices and that is where I see the wins being lossed.

[Backtobanks]

While I have never liked Dusty Baker, I do think it is a tad bit wrong to blame this season on Baker. This team just wasn't a good team from the beginning. The team the Cub front office assembled was a highly flawed team to begin with. True Dusty wasn't perfect or close to it in using that team but in hindsight this team would be lucky to win half their games even with the greatest manager of all time.

 

Lets look at Neifi and Corey. Corey has been dreadful from the beginning so we can replace him with Hairston. Not doing so is a strike against Baker. Having Hairston on the team would be a plus for Hendry, in that he had a perfectly good back up for a risk. What about Neifi? Well Neifi was never meant to be a starter bu he was used as a starter because of Nomar. His first month was great so any other option would have cost the Cubs runs and potential wins. After the first month he is horrendous but what other options were there? Todd Walker? Sure he could have played at the top of the order but he was out until May 25th. So then who is going to play at the top, and how many runs would they have created? How much of a difference would it make? So who is going to play SS and who is going to play #1 or #2? Everybody else on that team is either way too good for those spots or way to fragile for those spots.

 

Complaining about LF and which one to use is like complaining about which pile of poop smells better. They were all mediocre choices and the difference between the best and worst amounts to a hill of beans.

 

Rusch's starts were against some mediocre teams not saying that means he is no good but his stats in that department are somewhat skewed because of that.

 

 

For this team to be in contention means that it would have had to at least be in the running for 88 wins or so and realistically at least 90 for it to be truly in contention. This team probably ends up winning about 75 games. Roughly a 15 game difference in the standings. I personally don't think if you were to add up all the runs that Baker cost the Cubs with his odd moves it would add up to 15 wins worth. Did he cost this team some wins? You bet, but I think the big share of the blame should go to the front office.

 

The front office has shown a rather depressing pattern of repeatably making the same mistakes over and over. The Cubs continually hand out bad contracts that hamstring them and then further handcuff themselves when they try to get rid of the contract or are forced to play them because of it. The Cubs continually rely on fragile players who have shown throughout their career that they cannot be relied on to stay in the lineup. Put the two together also then forces the Cubs put together a weak bench which is extremely shallow when it comes to plugging holes. The Cubs front office routinely shows a lack of confidence in its ability to develop relievers or in finding gems on the scrapheap which then forces them to go out and spend big bucks for relievers of even more dubious quality.

 

This front office was relying on Kerry Wood, Nomar Garciaparra, Corey Patterson, Latroy Hawkins, Mike Remlinger, and others to play, and to play healthy and at a level that was unlikely to be able to be maintained by these players. I look at the front offices choices and that is where I see the wins being lossed.

 

I don't blame the whole season on Dusty, but I do think this team could have been 10 games better than it is with a different manager. The real problem with Dusty is now we don't have any insight into the 2006 Cubs. We won't know if Murton or Cedeno could fill 2 holes cheaply. The Cubs might be forced to overspend on veteran free agents just to please Dusty. Of course, overspending usually means over-extending the length of a contract which means we might be stuck with high-price 37-39 year olds in 2007-08. I just hope that players like Cedeno or Murton come out of spring training hitting about .650 because that will be the only way they will get the chance that they deserve next year.

[cubbieinexile]

10 wins is an extremely high amount of wins. For a player of manager to cost his team that much he must truly be one of the worst managers or players of all time.

 

Should he be fired? Sure, he should be fired because like you said the Cubs during his entire tenure have never had a solid answer on any of their prospects until after they have left the Cubs. Because of this it has also forced them to do stupid things in the acquisition front.

[goonys evil twin]

While I have never liked Dusty Baker, I do think it is a tad bit wrong to blame this season on Baker. This team just wasn't a good team from the beginning. The team the Cub front office assembled was a highly flawed team to begin with.

 

But Dusty had enormous input into the makeup of this team, he has since coming here.

 

Hendry leaves a lot to be desired as a GM, but that doesn't give Baker a free pass.

[cubbieinexile]

If Baker truly does have imput then that is another strike against the front office. Secondly I would also say that Bakers input is probably on the least important part of the team, and that is the bench. Baker perfering Joe Schmo as his backup catcher instead of Josh Schmee isn;t going to amount to much in terms of a single season. Perferring Tom Goodwin or Jose Macias over a young farmhand like Augie Ojeda or Roosevelt Brown again isn't going to amount to much.

[Tim]

How much of:

 

1) Wood's injuries can be traced back to Dusty's usage of him when Dusty should have known Wood's injury history and had direct evidence of poor performance in games after long outings

 

2) Patterson's struggles can be related to Dusty trying to turn him into something he's not

 

Obviously, each player bears a great deal of the responsibility for those failings. But the job of a manager is to get the most out of his players and I think Dusty put both of these guys into positions of failure. Given that those two things account for a great deal of what went wrong this year, how much blame you assign to Dusty for those things impacts how much of the blame he should get for the lousy record this season.

[cubbieinexile]

I don't think any manager could have kept Kerry healthy. Kerry has been an injury risk since the first day. CAn we actually be surprised when Kerry got hurt? They could have put him on a ten day rotation and he still would have gotten hurt. His arm has been toast and its been that way since Riggleman was the manager.

 

Patterson and the Cubs have been going at it since practically the day they drafted him. Corey is basically one of those 5 tool players who had little experience in baseball and had great thinks expected out of him because of his athleticism. Corey I don't think has demonstrated that he can be anything other than 2000 era Shawon Dunston.

[Tim]

I don't think any manager could have kept Kerry healthy. Kerry has been an injury risk since the first day. CAn we actually be surprised when Kerry got hurt? They could have put him on a ten day rotation and he still would have gotten hurt. His arm has been toast and its been that way since Riggleman was the manager.

 

Patterson and the Cubs have been going at it since practically the day they drafted him. Corey is basically one of those 5 tool players who had little experience in baseball and had great thinks expected out of him because of his athleticism. Corey I don't think has demonstrated that he can be anything other than 2000 era Shawon Dunston.

I take it from your response that you assign very little responsibility to Dusty for those two things, then? :D

 

I have a tendency to blame him more than you, but less than some. It was very obvious back in 2003 that Kerry was being hurt by the long outings. One can make the case that you did and say that another injury for him was inevitable, but I think that Dusty hastened that day through his usage of him.

 

As for Corey, I think he performed quite well over an extended time period from opening day 2003 through Sept 1, 2004. Yes, there were too many K's and not enough walks, but he was still a pretty productive CF during that time frame. It could just be Corey himself that led to this disastrous season, but I think Dusty's effort to turn him into a leadoff hitter and alter his approach contributed to that collapse. Again, I'm not trying to say Dusty was solely responsible, or even primarily respoonsible. But I think it's also wrong to ignore the potential contribution that Dusty made to what went wrong.

[YearofDaCubs]

Let's not forget about the Chad Fox debacle.

[scs_paradise]

I think a good manager can easily make a difference in 10 games. How many times did baker bring in remmy in situations where NO ONE else would have? You could never prove it obviously but I don't think its a stretch to say Dusty's poor decisions of ommision and commision have cost us 10 games.

[frostwyrm]

Years from now I think Dusty will be remembered first and foremost for his rough use of Prior and Wood in 2003. They led the majors in pitches per start and were ridden extremely hard for the stretch run. They have not been the same since.

[AC036198]

Prior has recovered from his pounding, IMO.

[abuck1220]

Let's not forget about the Chad Fox debacle.

 

i was afraid we were going to see the kerry wood debacle after he was used in a pointless game two days before shoulder surgery. good stuff.

[jyoung55]

Let's not forget about the Chad Fox debacle.

 

i was afraid we were going to see the kerry wood debacle after he was used in a pointless game two days before shoulder surgery. good stuff.

 

Dude, you need to have your best reliever in there late in the game. Cause, you know, you never know when the other team is going to come back man. The dude was looking good too so no reason to take him out.

[indifferent]

How much of:

 

1) Wood's injuries can be traced back to Dusty's usage of him when Dusty should have known Wood's injury history and had direct evidence of poor performance in games after long outings

 

2) Patterson's struggles can be related to Dusty trying to turn him into something he's not

 

Obviously, each player bears a great deal of the responsibility for those failings. But the job of a manager is to get the most out of his players and I think Dusty put both of these guys into positions of failure. Given that those two things account for a great deal of what went wrong this year, how much blame you assign to Dusty for those things impacts how much of the blame he should get for the lousy record this season.

 

Enjoying shades of gray, Tim! I believe it was 35% Dusty, 35% players, and 30% Hendry.

[Fred Hornkohl]

Enjoying shades of gray, Tim! I believe it was 35% Dusty, 35% players, and 30% Hendry.

 

I've got Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with a candlestick. Oh wait.... wrong game. Never mind.

[Cubzfan64]

How much of:

 

1) Wood's injuries can be traced back to Dusty's usage of him when Dusty should have known Wood's injury history and had direct evidence of poor performance in games after long outings

 

2) Patterson's struggles can be related to Dusty trying to turn him into something he's not

 

Obviously, each player bears a great deal of the responsibility for those failings. But the job of a manager is to get the most out of his players and I think Dusty put both of these guys into positions of failure. Given that those two things account for a great deal of what went wrong this year, how much blame you assign to Dusty for those things impacts how much of the blame he should get for the lousy record this season.

 

Enjoying shades of gray, Tim! I believe it was 35% Dusty, 35% players, and 30% Hendry.

 

This season has been so horrendous that the blame for the failure has to be split between all parties like you said. Hendry didn't adequately address the teams deficiencies in the offseason, the players he DID assemble did not play up to what was expected of them as a team, and the coaches/manager did not make good decisions on a regular basis.

 

All in all, this is one of the more disheartening seasons I can recall in the recent past. Cub fans have been teased in the last decade into truly believing we have a shot at a WS, only to have it yanked out from under us and seeing a team take this many steps backwards is tough to swallow.

[wastra]

I don't entirely blame Dusty, but he is one of several piecesof hte puzzle that failed miserably this season.

 

 

Would we be 10 games better without him? I don't know. How many games did we see Patterson/Perez at the top of the order? Every one of those games is a game in which our chance to score runs and win was intentionally diminished.

 

After his infamous "Remmy can't get lefties out" speech, how many times did Baker bring him in to face a lefty? (including THAT VERY DAY)

 

If you trace some of our pitchers' injuries to Baker, how many more games would a healthy Wood have won for us?

 

How many games did Dusty keep a sub-Mendoza (or nearly) Hollandsworth in the lineup at the time that Dubois was still hitting?

 

 

How many times with teh game on the line did Dusty trust someone like Macias to be hte primary bench option?

 

How many times did Macias or Perez get starts over better regular starters who WEREN'T injured?

 

 

 

There's more, obviously than that. But add up all those instances and find out what our record was in those games. If it's under .500, you have to think that Baker may not of cost us wins directly, but he definitely made it far harder than a manager should have for us to win.

[waffle]

this team played with no fire. The fundementals were aweful. Players knew their positions were safe because Dusty always sticks to his "dudes." Dusty always blamed everyone else. THe team for the last 3 years has behaved the same way (steve stone anyone?).

 

A good manager, injuries and all, could have lit a FIRE under this team and at least got them to be competitive for part of the year. If we were leading the wild card race at the all-star game, don't you think this team would have been more likely to lay it all on the line in the 2nd half?

 

When a team is in it, and feeling cocky and dangerous, they play better ball. Winning begats winning. This team had the attitude all year that they didn't need to try harder to win, that winning wasn't the most important thing to them. A good manager can instill that feeling of aggression and confidence that good teams possess. They expect to win every game and know that their manager will do whatever it takes to try to make it happen.

 

Not dusty.

 

Here's my hope, and it is unfortunately getting less likely with every yankee win, that Torre gets the boot, the cubs brass cuts bait with Dusty, and brings Torre in to manage till he retires.

 

10 games? EASY