Red Reposter - 4/21/09

The organization has GABP-shock. Therefore, we must always throw pitches with sink.

to criticize/not believe in any player or manager or GM.

I don’t think it’s ‘groupthink’ either. Just because this sit tends to draw people who tend to think about and watch baseball the same hardly justifies implying that we’re mindless followers.

I don’t know a single team that would have made such a deal. And if the Reds had, I would have quit on them as an organization.

He is 3-0 with 4+ era? Santana is only 2-1 with 0.46 era.

I’m not sure what you are saying here, but are you giving Dusty credit for Arroyo getting more run support than Santana?

And Baker has more than enough wins and experience to be offered jobs. Thats a lot of ‘real’ baseball people who have to be wrong for your lack of confidence in him to be right.

I just happen to think that the players have a lot more of a role in those wins than the manager. I think the manager plays some role, but I’m not going to give him credit for having Barry Bonds on his team. I will give him credit for managing Bonds’ personality, as well as some of the other assholes on that team, but I don’t buy into the whole “gets more out of his players” schtick that gets attached to Baker. I think he’s a fairly mediocre manager who happened to have some really good players play for him.

And I don’t hate Baker. He’s an upgrade over what the Reds have had here in Cincy since Jack McKeon left. I just don’t find him to be anything particularly special and at times he’s downright maddening.

I was curious about this so I looked into it. Here are Baker’s teams’ records in one-run games.
97 23-17
98 25-29
99 27-23
00 18-22
01 28-22
02 28-22
03 27-17
04 19-30
05 26-20
06 15-26
08 28-20
09 3-1
  267-249 (.517)

I’m not sure what to make of this. The thinking is most teams hover around .500 in one-run games. I’d have to look at a large group of managers to see how unusual this is, how great an order of magnitude Baker’s advantage is, etc. If he does provide his teams with an advantage in one-run games then he could possibly be one of the greatest managers in history.

just because everyone is doing it doesnt make it the right thing to do. this is the first thing you learn from watching the Family Channel. it’s true that most managers would keep running Gonzo out there even with the way he is playing, but that is the kind of counter-productive conventional wisdom that should drive any fan crazy.

i’ll admit that sometimes, especially in the game threads, things can get pretty outta hand and some outrageous things are said. but that’s part of being a fan.

I key component of that book is the old guard of baseball men v stats guys. The author makes the claim and provides strong arguments that baseball is filled with “baseball men”, and they are very hostile to stats guys, and the baseball men make bad decisions that cost their teams runs because that is tradition and that is how things have always been done.

A small market team like the Reds doesn’t have a lot of room for error. A creative manager and GM could give the Reds a competitive balance.

2. Esp. with McDonald (a.k.a., McFlurry).
We’ve all had fun with the T-Virus— a lot of the bitterness is CoPatt hangover and Dusty’s speed-at-the-top-OBP-be-damned mindset. Even with that, I thought the undercurrent was everyone hoping they were wrong, admittedly titillated by the idea of 60+ stolen bases coming to the team.
I, too, wish Old McDonald would get some love— I think it’s a great story of perseverance and growth that finally get rewarded. Merely average defense to date probably would have made him an afterthought, at worst. If he maintains the .300+ BA as a role player, the affection will come around. We can’t expect it, however, based on what we KNOW right now: his minor league numbers over a large sample size. Again, most of the vitriol is really with how Toothpicks uses him.
Nix— well, he’s just not as big a personality as Gomes.

4. Actually wasn’t directed toward something you believe, just explaining why there is no faith in Dusty’s “small ball” plan. If he were Tony LaRussa or Sparky Anderson with multiple rings, we might be totally on board. Without a resume to believe in, HAVOC becomes a traveshamockery. Especially with his offhand comments (intentionally provoking or not) about “clogging the bases.”

The bulk of Baker-hate is about not fully embracing the development of what we have in house— instead reaching outside the organization for personal favorites and being buddy-buddy with the veterans at the expense of playing time that can tell us something about the talent on the way.

Oh yeah— it’s also the Internet, the easiest place to generate an angry mob since Paris during the French Revolution.