Dusty Baker... Fired??!

The Game Room
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Oh yeah, I remember them from Walking Tall.

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I don’t know that Baker is all that bad a manager or that, really, he deserves this much flak. I mean, a lot of teams didn’t make it to the play-in game, after all.

For all that Baker is criticized for being a players’ manager,

  1. Sometimes that works. Cito Gaston was a players’ manager and he has two World Series rings. Joe Torre was a players’ manager and he has what, four?

  2. It’s not like Baker has NEVER won a playoff series. In his career his teams have won three series and lost six, which isn’t good but it’s hardly proof he can’t win a big game. I mean, everyone talks about how Joe Maddon is a genius, and he sure seems to do well with the Rays, but since they won the 2008 ALCS how have they done in the playoffs? They’re, what, 5-11 in playoff or sudden death games since then? Something like that. Nobody holds that against Maddon, it’s just the way the cookies have crumbled.

Let’s be honest, the main thing is just getting to the dance. One you do there is no telling what’ll happen, none at all. Sometimes the best team wins, and sometimes the 2006 Cardinals win, and who the hell knows. Sometimes your ace pitcher carries you and sometimes he blows up like in the 2003 NLCS. I’d want a guy who can get me to the playoffs, and Baker has shown he can do that so frankly there are worse managers around. If the Blue Jays wanna fire John Gibbons and hire Dusty Baker I will welcome him to Toronto with open arms.