Baker judges by his senses

[Pere]

Baker judges by his senses: Knowing what makes his players tick more important than their stats

The best baseball managing is done by the seat of your pants, using good, old-fashioned, pre-sabermetric logic. That's another reason to like Dusty Baker.

I don't know what I can add to this.

[Murderers Row]

Baker's an idiot.

[cogswell]

I think that Daugherty's a bigger one though.

[Wade8813]

By-the-book managing is for men who aren't confident in their ability to read players and situations. It's for managers who don't know their players' personalities. It's what you do so you can say later, after it backfires: "Don't blame me. I went by the book."

Oooh. Saying you don't like called third strikes. Now THAT is reading players! [/sarcasm]

Yeah, Daugherty makes a lot of poor arguments, flawed logic, etc.

[Pere]

The article ends with,

Here's a stat: Wins as manager: Dusty Baker, 1,162; Bill James, 0.

Given the strain of sports journalist that Daugherty appears to belong to, I'm surprised he didn't look at the one ultimate, all-encompassing stat of WSR.

WSR of teams employing Dusty Baker, 1 (including his careers as player, coach and manager).
WSR of teams employing Bill James, 2.

[Murderers Row]

Here's another stat

Losses
Baker-1041
James- 0

[Honus Wagner Rules]

I don't know any manager that manages by the "seat of his pants". Does Dusty not platoon position players or bring in lefty relievers? Why do managers emply these stategies if it were not for statistics telling it's the best move to do so? Paul Daugherty is complete moron.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

The other day, the Reds manager decided he wanted Joey Votto and Adam Dunn to swing their bats more. "I don't like called third strikes," Baker said.

Baker wants Dunn to swing more? I guess 195 Ks is not enough! :o

I sent Daugherty am email.

[brewcrew82]

The guys at Fire Joe Morgan have already dissected this article.

Some of their responses include (original article in bold):

The other day, the Reds manager decided he wanted Joey Votto and Adam Dunn to swing their bats more. "I don't like called third strikes," Baker said.

Can we get an Amen?

That's the thing about saberguys. We love called third strikes. I know it's controversial and counterintuitive, but we think batters should take more called third strikes. Statistics clearly show that offenses are best when the hitters take called 3rd strikes at least 16 times per game. That's why sabermetricians generally put on the permanent take sign for the first seven innings.

The best thing about Baker is that from all accounts, it's important to him to know his players individually: what jazzes them, what scares them, the situations that best suit their talents and temperaments. Contrary to the notions of the seamheads and stat freaks, players are not numbers.

Don't use jazz as a verb, please. Also: stat freaks and seam heads hate baseball. They are [expletive] ASIMO robots who make managerial moves through NASA press releases. Eric Wedge makes his moves from home, via on-line chats. Terry Francona has never met anyone on his 25-man roster. Joe Maddon is a 2.4 gigahertz Linksys router. Manny Acta is actually M.A.N. eACTA, the black-ops code-name for the Mechanized Algorithmic Numerical (internet-ready) Actionable Computation Techno-Automaton. When his "contract" runs out with the Nats he is going to be launched into space. We are weaponizing space. Deal with it, China.

Click here for the article.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

[stevebogus]

Not to defend Dusty Baker or anything, but it is definitely possible to reduce strikeouts by swinging the bat more often.

Let's assume player A swings hard and misses quite often. He swings only at good pitches that will be called strikes. When he swings he will miss 1/3 of the time, foul the pitch off 1/3 of the time, and hit the ball fair 1/3 of the time. If such a player always waits until he has 2 strikes on him before swinging at a strike he will strike out in 50% of his at-bats and put the ball in play in 50% of his ABs (while drawing a whole bunch of walks too). If that player swings at every strike he will put more balls in play and reduce his strikeouts to 22.22% of his ABs. You cannot put the ball in play without taking a swing. Of course, by swinging at every strike you will also take fewer walks. My simple model assumes that the batter is not swinging at bad pitches, and cannot predict the walk rate without knowing the percentage of pitches that are called balls. It is also an oversimplification, but I am just using it to illustrate a point. Aggressive hitters strike out fewer times than patient hitters with equal bat control and strike zone judgement.

Bakers wants his batters swinging, not looking. The big question is can a batter go to the plate with that mindset and still avoid chasing bad pitches? I don't think Baker wants his hitters to swing at bad pitches. But if a batter is in the habit of taking the first pitch all the time he is missing opportunities, and should consider being more aggressive on the first pitch.

[baseballPAP]

Why does everyone always want to fix the one guy they have that has some good production? Why isn't Dusty trying to fix David Ross????

Another season in hell begins.......

[digglahhh]

That was one of the best FJM pieces in a while! MANN eACTA! Priceless.

And, if you go through the comment seciton, you'll also find this:

# of World Series rings:
James: 2
Baker: 1

[SABR Matt]

PAP...you poor guy...Reds fans, I don't envy you. Dusty Baker will turn Cueto into a paper-weight very soon when he forced him to throw 180 pitches in his opening start in the Reds rotation.

[hellborn]

Baker judges by his senses: ...

You mean like, when Dusty hears tendons ripping in his starting pitcher's arm, it's finally time to take him out?