Showing posts with label dusty - a goddamned moron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dusty - a goddamned moron. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Dusty-like shenanigans (cont'd)

Reds manager Dusty Baker said Wednesday that the plan is for Aroldis Chapman to start "someday." (The inference being that it won't be happening anytime soon. Chapman has posted a dominant 0.00 ERA and 32/5 K/BB ratio in 18 1/3 innings of relief this season and deserves a long-form look. But Baker is as stubborn as they get and seems to think he has the Cuban left-hander pegged correctly as a setup man.)
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Friday, January 23, 2009

The more things change, the more they are Dusty

Manager Dusty Baker confirmed Thursday that Willy Taveras will be the Reds' leadoff hitter.
Naturally, Baker focuses on Taveras' speed rather than his .331 career on-base percentage. "His role is he's our center fielder and our leadoff man," Baker said. "The fact that he's so young, he's going to get better. A lot of people talk about his on-base percentage. I like to think in terms of him getting into scoring position." If you're curious, the "so young" Taveras turned 27 last month.

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Question of the Day Is..

...how do the Fants get Jay Bruce into the lineup? With Korey gone, it looks like Busty may actually play him. Should i send Vlad or Thome to the taxi squad? Dump the Gawdawful Bret Myers? or just GFM?

Monday, May 26, 2008

Can't Bunt? Grab some pine!


Dusty's at it again! Sucking:

From Rotoworld:

Adrian Gonzalez-1B-Padres May. 25 - 10:25 pm et

Adrian Gonzalez hit a three-run homer off Edinson Volquez in the bottom of the 18th to give the Padres a 12-9 win over the Reds on Sunday.

A tremendous finish that no one watching DirecTV for six hours got to witness, as Extra Innings cut out two minutes before Gonzalez popped one over the center-field fence. Gonzalez finished the contest 4-for-9 with two doubles. The wild game featured seven homers at pitcher friendly Petco Park. One of them immediately followed a dropped flyball in the outfield, costing Greg Maddux a chance at a victory. That came off the bat of the red-hot Adam Dunn. Dunn, though, wasn't around for extra innings, as he was removed for defense in the ninth. That decision, plus the one to turn to Josh Fogg rather than Bill Bray in a failed attempt to close out a two-run lead in the 11th, cost Dusty Baker's team dearly.

As noted over at the Wellness Center - Corey Patterson led off and played the entire game. He was 0-8. Again from Rotoworld:

Corey Patterson went 0-for-8 in Sunday's 18-inning game against the Padres.
Maybe it's time for Jay Bruce? Patterson became the first Red to go hitless in at least eight at-bats since Eddie Milner in 1984. He's hitting .183 with no walks and one extra-base hit in 60 at-bats during May.

Could you imagine if a rookie (like say Patterson a few years ago...) was performing as such? Dusty might just shoot them.

He really is, in a crowded contest full of various idiocies and vacuities, the dumbest manager out there right now, maybe ever.

In searching "dusty a goddamned moron" on google - I noticed the Lattice came up second! #1 wasn't about Baker. There's something deeply wrong with that.

Monday, May 19, 2008

This Makes Twice..."Dustiny"?

This is wonderful:

"He actually is one of the best bunters on the team, believe it or not. We were trying to get the runners in scoring position, and he threw him a pitch he could hit. We're playing pretty good baseball now. Things are starting to go pretty good."
--Reds manager Dusty Baker, on Adam Dunn attempting to bunt before bashing a walk-off homer this week. (ESPN.com)

Adam. Fucking. Dunn. Get the hitters in scoring position.

There it is. I think Dusty has finally actually completed the circle. He has become the best Dusty he can be.

Monday, May 12, 2008

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (cont'd)

Adam Dunn is hitting seventh Monday for the first time since 2005. Meanwhile, Ken Griffey Jr. continues to get a free pass. Dunn has the better OPS of the two by 55 points and has the same exact number of runs+RBI as Griffey despite using just 85 percent as many outs and always batting lower in the order. That Dusty Baker won't even try hitting Dunn second or third in an effort to get him going speaks poorly of him as a manager.

Now, the real test for Dusty will be when he tries to double switch Dunn out for defense in the 8th, and we'll see if he mistakingly puts the pitcher in batting 5th where Dunn normally hits.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

One of these years Dusty Baker will figure out the double switch, you'll see...

But until then he will still be compensated with MEEEEEEllllllions of dollars a year, so don't feel to bad for him...

Though Corey Patterson was supposed to be at the plate, David Ross batted out of order in the ninth inning of an 8-3 loss to the Mets on Sunday. What is this, Little League? Per MLB rules, Ross has to complete his at-bat to be ruled out, and the outcome of his at-bat is then discarded with no runners allowed to advance. The Mets allowed him to do so, and since he lined out to right there was little harm done. Ross was the batter listed in the order after Patterson, so he was forced to come back to the plate for his 'real' at-bat and Patterson was charged the out. Ross singled after returning to the batter's box. There's almost too many jokes here for us to enjoy. Corey Patterson making outs even when he's not at-bat is just one of them. As if their wasn't already overwhelming evidence that Dusty Baker is a horrible manager, this just adds m
ore fuel to the fire.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

It's Dusty alright

Name IP H R ER BB K HR Season ERA Pitches
Volquez 7 4 0 0 6 10 0 1.06 118

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Will Carroll Shenanigans

As Derrick Lee goes fuckin' yard to make it 5-3 I'm reading the Will Carroll chat...Love love love love love love love love love D.Lee. Love. Will Carroll, well, we have documentation about that...anyway - from his chat this lovely duo:

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...

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Dusty is a whole new stupid

"I said to [coach] Chris Speier, 'I hope he doesn't get the bunt down so he can hit a game-winning home run.'"
--Dusty Baker, on Edwin Encarnacion's game-winning home-run last week, creating questions over why he called for a bunt in the first place.

He called the bunt because that's what he does. He bunts. And he sticks with the vets. And he doesn't believe in pitch counts or getting on base or any of that nonsense. He believes in the bunt, the "smart" play that creates openings and holes and gets the other team thinking. He hasn't had a thought in his head since 1979 and he is the goddamn worst.