Friday, February 25, 2011

Dusty looks to get the monkey off his back

SI has a nice article on Dusty Baker (h/t Redleg Nation):
Baker, along with Hall of Famer Al Lopez, is in the argument for the most successful manager in baseball history never to have won the World Series, at least since they started playing the Fall Classic back in 1903.
"Hey, my time is coming," he said. " I always believe that -- and more than one."
With six more wins, giving him 1,411 victories, Baker will pass Jimmy Dykes and Lopez into second place for the most career wins by a manager in the World Series era without ever winning the World Series. The only manager who won more games without a ring is the all-time Captain Ahab of managers, Gene Mauch.
Is Baker the new Gene Mauch? Mauch won 1,902 games without a title. But Mauch also lost more games than he won and infamously presided over blown pennant races or postseason series in 1964, 1982, 1985 and 1986. Baker has a career winning percentage of .512 -- separating himself from Mauch.
I've been a critic of Dusty's handling of pitchers over the years, but his work last year impressed me immensely.  Go on Dusty, get out there, get us at least 90 wins, another division championship, then the pennant and world series ring.

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