mattseward (Cardiff. UK): Hi Will, Johnny Cueto has made a big early impression but he has now logged a huge amount of innings over the past year. If you were the Reds GM (and after you have unceremoniously fired Dusty Baker) would you set a hard limit on him as per Joba and Bucholz?
Will Carroll: I'm not sure I'd fire Dusty, to be honest. This is the kind of team he can succeed with. I also wouldn't set a hard limit because I don't believe in hard limits. All that said, I'd certainly have some sort of monitoring system, along the lines of what the Red Sox do, put in place immediately and tell Dusty that the system would tell him when a pitcher had to come out.
then...
mattymatty (RE: Dusty): "This [the Reds] is the kind of team he [Dusty Baker] can succeed with." That sounds pretty tough to back up, Will. Care to try?
Will Carroll: Older star player with talent. Younger "misunderstood" star in a contract year. Some hustle players. Two established pitchers at the top who can take heavy innings. A couple young pitchers with star potential. That sound like the 03 Cubs to you?
***
A few points or so:
1. The Cubs were awesome in 2003, no doubt. Prior was like a fucking nail gun, pounding the zone. My God, he was amazing. And Wood, Zambrano. Patterson played well that year. Goddamn that pitching. Clement had a nice year.
2. Two young pitchers with star potential? The Cubs pitchers were already there...I mean, really it was notable for Zambrano's big year, which built on that great second half of '02. Two of those three were done serious damage to. No doubt. Now, Dusty was going after some big game there, but still, people noted that the abuse, especially of Prior, was pretty hardcore. The Reds' young pitching is a lot less experienced than the young pitching of the Cubs was, a lot less proven, and to be honest, a lot less touted. Still, Dusty does have some shot at proving he's learned. That's not redemption necessarily, but it's something.
And some idiot asked if Prior was a wuss on the chat. The guy was pitching with a knife through his shoulder. But yeah, I guess he was a wuss you dumb fuck office drone. Ugh. Go back to the frat house and talk about clutch hitting and football.
3. Brandon Philips is to ARam as Jr. is to Sosa? Ok, I suppose. AGon is to AGon - but not much of a Keppinger factor. I don't know if the outfields were put together very similarly. I mean, neither of them was particularly pitcher friendly in the field I suppose. Patterson, like AGon there...but then no Loften equivalent. And Jay Bruce? I guess he is kind of Pattersonny as he is a highly regarded prospect, but there the similarities mostly end. So for a similar team make-up, they're kind of different. But it's in the pitching that the big differences are.
4. Cubs bullpen that year was way way better. That's kind of an important difference. I mean, pitching in general, is kind of big.
5. Call me an optimist though...I think Dusty will do better with the young pitchers. But I don't think he'll ever learn to trust Votto or Bruce until they're actually at HoF levels - and for Votto that might never happen. Though being called "Joey" helps. That's pretty lunch pail.
6. Hustle players? What does that even mean?
7. Perhaps the 2003 Cubs and 2008 Reds will simply reveal that for managers, in the end, it's about avoiding injuries created by avoidable and repeatable motions and about deciding who gets playing time. That's really it. The flukes will reveal themselves - maybe nothing could have saved Prior or Wood. Maybe Bartman really is all that stands between Dusty and immortality. Maybe then it would have been worth it. And it was a hell of a ride. But in the end, Dusty had a lot less to do with it than he is charged with or credited for. But one does wonder about his stubbornness and his willingness to insert himself into the game to the point where he hindered the Cubs development both in-game and long term to some extent. Perhaps it's overstated.
Perhaps the best response, if you want to defend Dusty, is simply to argue that he's just like the rest of them. Until a manager actually breaks the mold and starts insisting on changes to the construction of his team that will give him competitive advantage (ten man pitching staff anybody? Strong, planned platoons?), we're going to get cookie cutter managers who over-manage and preen and show their feathers off to the media because there's no there there. They're nothing special. They are distinguishable mostly by their personalities and, perhaps, the potential for the occasional blast of insight within the game occasionally. So, taking that into account, perhaps Dusty's just another manager to ignore. So why bother going through the hassle of firing him. Of course, why hire him?
To return to an earlier point, that he does bear some responsibility, Joe Sheehan made a couple nice points earlier today at BP:
So it doesn’t matter very much to me that Corey Patterson is batting .262/.304/.667, two expected numbers and a very odd one. What matters is that Dusty Baker has made him the leadoff man against righties, a role for which he and his low OBP (.326 this year, .306 career) is wildly ill-suited. Having Patterson’s low-OBP, high-SLG act in the #1 spot means the Reds’ offense runs inefficiently, as their power hitters in the middle of the lineup bat with fewer runners on base than they would if an OBP guy were atop the lineup. This will cost the Reds runs throughout the season.
It doesn’t matter to me that Joey Votto is hitting .308/.308/.308, although I do wonder what effect Dusty Baker’s March criticisms have had on a take’n’rake hitter. It does matter that Votto has gotten consecutive starts just once, over the weekend in Pittsburgh. Baker has twice played Juan Castro over Votto against lefties, moving Jeff Keppinger across the diamond to make the alignment work. That’s criminal. Young players need playing time; if Votto is going to start four days a week, he’d be better off in Louisville. Baker has already derailed the career of a similar player in Hee Seop Choi, using him in a similar fashion in 2003 after Choi returned from a midseason concussion for the Cubs.
I suspect that like most of his teams, the Reds will do well despite Dusty. Because he's a moron and because they got a pretty good roster. And in the end, his legacy will be what didn't thrive, what should have thrived, while he managed.
Why is it that to appear like one is in the know, one is always bucking whatever one considers mainstream? Dusty sucks. The Dodgers front office sucks and Billy Beane is smart. Get used to it. I don't care how mainstream those thoughts are.
And Kenny on the South Side? Only the Shadow knows...
