Sportsfrog.com

In which I defend (to a slight extent) Dusty Baker.

Look, he’s been just comically awful at times this season with regard to his decisions. In particular, the Corey Patterson leads off and ruins games fetish of his.

But one concern that accompanied him to Cincy was the flat-out abuse he heaped on Mark Prior and Kerry Wood (and Carlos Zambrano for that matter) while he was in Chicago. For whatever reason, Prior’s career looks done, Wood is in the pen, and Zambrano is same as he ever was. Whether or not Dusty’s usage of those pitchers harmed them remains an open but obvious question. At any rate, it is pretty generally agreed that how he used those three on occasion was dumb. And reckless.

In Cincy, he has been tasked with managing the first full major league seasons of 24-year-old Edinson Volquez and 22-year-old Johnny Cueto. Volquez, as I documented below, has been insanely good this year. Cueto, with a 5.19 ERA, has had typical rookie ups and downs, but has shown enough to give Reds fans room for genuine optimism.

Now, with yet another Reds prized youngster called up to make his major league debut today (Daryl Thomson—23), worries are again being expressed about how Dusty will handle him. Based on how Baker has used Volquez and Cueto so far this year, those worries are perhaps misplaced.

Volquez’s game by game pitch counts:

95, 75, 112, 105, 104, 100, 118, 110, 111, 92, 39, 102, 113, 101, 112, 103

Note: The 39 pitch count anomoly came in Baker’s on insane usage of Volquez, an appearance in the 18th inning on one days rest.

Cueto’s game by game pitch counts:

92, 66, 82, 99, 99, 55, 108, 98, 97, 114, 119, 100, 114, 101, 109

A quick review of those numbers reveals some improvement on Dusty’s part from some of those 136 pitch count monstrosities he unleashed on Wood, Prior, and Zambrano. And, I can tell you from watching most of their starts this season, Baker has generally done a good job at not pushing those two arms to the limit in pressure situations when they have tired, rather instead opting to go ahead and get them out of the game.

So, yeah, in a year when Baker’s managing has been very uneven (at best), his usage of two of the organization’s assets has not been malpractice. So, small tip of the cap to Baker.

Edited to add:

Mr. Delaware raised a salient observation in the Swamp, noting (quite correctly dammit) that the Reds suck, while the 2003 Cubs did not, and were in a race all year. True dat. Still, up until a few weeks ago, the Reds were in theory in a race (owner Bob Castellini said upon firing GM Wayne Krivsky that he wants to “win now”) and the usage of Volquez/Cueto still felt more sane than what my memory is of how Dusty was using Prior/Wood in 2003. A check of the game logs shows that:

Mark Prior pitch counts through June 29 in 2003 (arbitrary date picked for before the heat of the race kicked in):

105, 112, 95, 112, 116, 97, 105, 124, 107, 111, 123, 124, 107, 119, 107, 127

That was already a far friskier pace than he has set with Volquez. Mind you, Prior finished up that year with 131 and 133 pitch count monstrosities for his last two starts. Simply ridiculous.

Kerry Wood pitch counts through June 29 in 2003:

88, 111, 120, 104, 124, 114, 116, 141, 121, 90, 109, 109, 120, 104, 108, 111, 126

Oof. Some serious heavy usage there, far more than we have seen so far with Volquez/Cueto.

For what it’s worth, Baker lifted Thompson after five scoreless innings today in his debut after 96 pitches. The improvement? He didn’t run Thompson out there for “just one more inning”, choosing instead to lift his pitcher at an appropriate juncture. This is good asset management. For whatever else Dusty’s flaws have been this season (and they have been many), again, his management of the young pitchers has been a pleasant surprise.