http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/joe_sheehan/06/24/baker.larussa/index.html

This guy can't even rip Dusty Baker right.

He fails to make a good point except for talking about Orlando Cabrera in the leadoff spot.

He says Dusty's success in SF is a direct result of Barry Bonds being on the team. He then praises LaRussa while failing to mention that his success in Oakland and St. Louis is a direct result of Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols.

Then he rips him for playing Jonny Gomes and Laynce Nix over Chris Dickerson at the beginning of the year. WTF?! He calls Dickerson a high OBP guy while failing to notice Dickerson's .205 BA and .222 OBP this year before going on the DL.

Then he says "make no mistake, if the Reds sign Gary Matthews, he will play". Oh really Nastradamus? Whats tonight's lottery numbers? What if GMJ hits .200 at AAA? Will he play then?

Then after he praises LaRussa some more produces this little gem where he says LaRussa won with the White Sox, won with the A's, and won with the Cardinals. Aside from the Division title he won with the White Sox in '83, he never finished higher than 3rd any of his SEVEN other years there.

I'm not one to defend Dusty Baker, as any Reds fan on here would know, but this whole piece is based on conjecture, old talking points, and opinion that goes against fact.

In other news, apprently Dusty Baker ruined Mark Prior and Kerry Wood's arm.

Baker's inadequacies are a problem for the Reds, who find themselves as serious contenders for the first time in a decade. They cannot afford to throw away value on their manager's whims, not when their primary competition, the Cardinals, is being helmed by a man who squeezes value from his entire roster.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/joe_sheehan/06/24/baker.larussa/index.html#ixzz0rpacmaS6

QFT. And why we wont make the playoffs.

Didn't read the article, but Dusty is not a great manager. I don't need an article to tell me that

jordo212000;400874 wrote:Didn't read the article, but Dusty is not a great manager. I don't need an article to tell me that

Wow. Good post. Thanks for the insight.

So far this writer is trashing Jonny Gomes? Seriously? And saying Chris Dickerson should have been playing?

I agree with him that Matthews will only harm the progress of the young outfielders.

I agree that Cabrera's OBP is lacking. He should not be the leadoff hitter for the team. He is probably best suited as a 7 or 8 hitter but then the Reds run into a problem. (Phillips seems locked in at 2, Votto is the 3 hitter, Gomes and Rolen are RBI guys, Bruce? yeah right, Stubbs failed there earlier, and then you have the choice of two slow catchers.)

The only real candidates IMO are:
-Phillips and Stubbs. However as I said before Phillips have been great in the 2 hole and Stubbs is a young guy who collapsed as the leadoff hitter earlier this season.
-What about Hanigan as the leadoff guy when he plays? Unorthodox, sure but he was hitting .351 (.468 OBP) before he went down. I think he runs decent too

Upon further review, Dusty is still a poor manager (I've read it now)

When I read the article, I found myself menatally defending Baker for the first time in my life. Let's be straight - I don't like Baker. As soon as he was hired, I ranked him as about my 30th choice for manager, right after the cryogenically frozen head of Ted Williams. I have since bashed him for his repeated mismanagement of the lineup, pitching staff and even his own actions and comments both on and off the field. I don't expect him to be back next year and I will dance for joy when that happens...

But that article was so far off-base it looked like Vince Coleman trying to steal second when he was with the Reds - an earnest attempt at something that he was in no way capable of doing. If you want to bash Baker find something other than the Cabrera move to leadoff, Johnny Gomes, and the fact that Baker is a player's coach.

When Cabrera was moved to leadoff, Stubbs was looking like the reincarnation of Bradon Larson. Something...anything...had to be done. There were really only two choices - Cabrera or BP. BP was hitting cleanup - no way you can move a guy mid-season from cleanup to leadoff. That move would have been destined to fail. Both for the Reds and for a struggling BP. That left Cabrera as the next best option and it worked relatively well until recently. We know this team doesn't have a true leadoff, so nothing is ideal. Maybe BP is currently our best option, but at the time of the move, Cabrera was.

Johnny Gomes is a terrible fielder, worse than Dunn, but I am yet to see his poor fielding to cost us a game. To discount his offense (which we know has directly contributed to multiple wins this year) because with most fly balls he looks like a defensive tackle trying to catch a punt, is either colossally ignorant or an attack on Baker, Gomes and maybe even Jocketty. Gomes could easily be an All-Star and that clown writer would rather see Dickerson?!

I agree in principle that LaRussa is a better manager than Baker and that a tactical approach is better than a 'gut' or conventional wisdom approach, but that doesn't mean LaRussa's Cardinals will prevail because of those points. Joe Torre is much more like Baker than LaRussa and I think he has done ok as a manager, don't you? Since when was being well-liked by your players a bad thing anyway?

I wouldn't call Gomes a "great" outfielder, but he hasn't done anything to suggest to me that he is a bad one. His shortfall is probably lack of range, but Stubbs covers so much ground that it doesn't matter. Gomes catches everything hit to him and he has zero errors. What is there to complain about. That writer was so off on the Gomes argument. Dickerson will be lucky to get some of Nix's ABs whenever his vagina heals up