2020 Could Make Or Break Dusty Baker’s Case For Cooperstown.
Dusty Baker is the Andy Reid of baseball. At least, he is Andy Reid as Reid was before hoisting the Lombardi Trophy on February 2 of this year, when his Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl. By doing so, Reid finally rid himself of the moniker that had stuck to him for almost fifteen years- that of the best coach never to bring his team a championship. Although the role of the manager in baseball and the head coach in football are vastly different, Dusty Baker can stake claim to the dubious distinction of having accomplished almost everything as a skipper except winning the World Series.
Baker’s very first season as a manager would eerily foreshadow how much of his career has played out since. Taking over the clubhouse of the San Francisco Giants in 1993, he led the team to a record of 103–59, still the best regular season record the team has posted since moving to the West Coast. But due to the fact that the playoff system in place at the time only allowed for one team per division, the Giants lost out to the 104-win Atlanta Braves (bizarrely featuring in the National League West division at the time).
To make this twist of fate even more cruel, the very next baseball postseason would be revamped to include the wild card, which would have allowed the Giants to have easily clinched a postseason berth. Furthermore, the Braves were also moved to the more geographically sensible NL East. Both of these changes were cold comfort to the Giants and their fanbase, and even almost thirty years and three World Series titles later, some fans still bemoan the perceived injustice of 1993.
Baker would continue to successfully manage the Giants, and indeed, everywhere that he has worked as a manager. Under his stewardship San Francisco would win two division titles and a National League pennant (as a wild card) in 2002. Every subsequent team that Baker has managed- the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals- won their division at least once during his tenure, the latter two multiple times. And yet each of Baker’s teams have not only failed to win the World Series, but have done in a series of spectacular collapses.
In the 2002 World Series, the Giants led the Anaheim Angels by three games to two and five runs to none in the seventh inning of Game 6- nine outs away from victory. Baker handed the “game ball” to Giants starter Russ Ortiz as he removed him for reliever Felix Rodriguez, only for the Angels to somehow rally and win the game and series. The very next year the Chicago Cubs, boasting a similar lead in the sixth game of the National League Championship Series against the Florida Marlins, suffered an even more infamous meltdown- the so-called “Steve Bartman incident”, where Marlins hitter Luis Castillo hit a foul ball that Cubs fan Bartman reached over the Wrigley Field railing and caught, to the consternation of Cubs outfielder Moises Alou. This set the stage for yet another blown lead (and for Bartman, a ruined life).
In 2012, Baker’s Cincinnati Reds blew a two games to none lead to his former club the Giants in the National League Division Series. In 2016 and 2017, Baker’s Washington Nationals lost the NLDS twice in five games, leading in Game 5 both times. After the 2017 defeat, in spite of the fact that in his first two seasons as manager the Nationals won their division twice, Baker was fired. With him approaching his seventies, it was an open question whether or not Baker would ever manage again- until scandalous circumstances intervened.
During the 2019–2020 offseason, the Houston Astros have been reeling from the biggest scandal to hit Major League Baseball since the steroid era of the late 1990s and early 2000s (with Baker’s Giants at the center of it all thanks to Barry Bonds). With an official investigation finding that they used an illegal, technology-fueled scheme to read the signs that opposing pitchers and catchers were using (allowing them to signal their hitters what pitches were coming), Houston’s manager A.J. Hinch (and General Manager Jeff Luhnow) were first suspended for one year by MLB, then fired by Astros owner Jim Crane.
With spring training looming, Crane needed to find a new manager quickly, and Baker quickly emerged as the ideal candidate. His years managing Bonds’ Giants meant that he knew how to guide a clubhouse through controversy and harsh media attention better than perhaps any in the game. And while on paper Baker was pegged by some as an old dinosaur ill-fitted for the ultra-modern, analytically minded Astros, astute observers such as Baseball Prospectus’ Rob Mains have noted that he has adapted his managing style better to the modern game than many have assumed.
Dusty Baker’s managing career is arguably already Hall of Fame worthy as it is. He ranks fifteenth of all time in managerial wins, and all but two of the men ahead of him are already in Cooperstown (and one of those two, Bruce Bochy, is a mortal lock to be in as soon as he is eligible). Furthermore, he boasts a better winning percentage (%532)than nearly half of the men ranked above him on that list. And cases have been made that the blemishes on his record- the postseason collapses, supposedly “ruining” promising young pitchers such as the Cubs’ Mark Prior, are not actually his fault.
Nonetheless, the narratives around those failures persist among many fans and pundits, and if Baker had never managed again after 2017 his path to Cooperstown would likely have been difficult. But taking on the job with the Astros gives him a chance to erase many of the doubts. If the team should win the American League West division (as they are projected to do) then Baker will likely get within striking distance of achieving two thousand manager wins.
Every manager to achieve this feat has reached the Hall of Fame (assuming Bochy will be voted in when he is eligible), and it would make Baker’s case hard to deny. Baker is only 137 wins away, easily doable in two seasons with a talented team like the Astros. His contract is only guaranteed for one year with an option for a second, but if he can show that he can work well with such a modern club as the Astros, he will have erased his dinosaur reputation and should be able to get another job- and the near guarantee of 2,000 wins that goes with it.
Finally, of course, winning the World Series with Houston would make his candidacy more certain than anything. Andy Reid may have been bound for football’s Hall of Fame even before achieving that elusive Super Bowl win, but winning that one title removed all doubt. As a young Giants fan, Dusty’s presence in the clubhouse was almost as integral to my formative experiences following the team as their achievements on the field. Whatever my feelings about the Houston Astros and their cheating, it will be hard not to root for Dusty this season as he seeks to cement his legacy once and for all.
