I have a beef. There is an increasingly common conception that Dusty Baker is looking better and better as a manager as we get further and further in the rearview mirror. That by itself is not necessarily a bad thing. He went to the playoffs every year, won two pennants, and won a World Series. In his last season as manager, he came within a game of going to another World Series. The same happened in 2020. It’s hard to argue with the results.
However, this is not what these new opinions are based on. Instead, these new opinions are based on things that have happened after he managed. So, we are talking about statements that seemingly make sense when you first utter them, but completely crumble under scrutiny. Let’s consider the number one criticism of Baker at the time and see how these new “revelations” stack up.
The primary charge against Baker is that he neglected to play Chas McCormick and Yainer Diaz every day. It seemed particularly glaring given the alternatives he did choose to go with that season when those two were not in the lineup. This is where the revisionist history comes into play. There are significant problems with Diaz and McCormick in 2025. So, the common refrain is that we owe old Dusty an apology because he turned out to be right about those two players.
Let’s look at those two players in 2023 and their alternatives and see how “right” he was. The main thing we have to remember is that the manager’s job is to manage the 26 guys he has the best that he can AT THAT PARTICULAR TIME. This isn’t your back of the baseball card crap. Fancy analysts like me can prattle on about the aggregate and the aggregate matters to a greater or lesser extent depending on when in the season you are talking about. Yet, 2025 Diaz and McCormick have little to do with 2023 Diaz and McCormick. This will be a mantra that I repeat over and over again until it is clearly understood.
Yainer Diaz: .282/.308/.538, .354 wOBA, 127 wRC+, +4 DRS, 0 FRV
Martin Maldonado: .191/.258/.348, .266 wOBA, 66 wRC+, -10 DRS, -16 FRV
Yes, no catcher can literally play every day, but the fact that Maldonado somehow got more than 400 plate appearances was criminal. I cannot stress this often enough. Baker’s job was not to forecast what Diaz would become. He potentially could have seen holes in his game that would eventually appear. Still, his job was to put the best guy on the field. There is nothing in the numbers above that would justify playing Maldonado. Now, if we saw 2025 Diaz then I could see some potential justification except for the fact that Maldonado was not a good defensive catcher at that point. Again, the key is what the player is actually doing at the time. On balance, Maldonado was an excellent defensive catcher. He hasn’t been one the past three seasons. He got old. It happens.
Chas McCormick: .273/.353/.489, .362 wOBA, 132 wRC+, +4 DRS, +2 OAA
Jake Meyers: .227/.296/.382, .297 wOBA, 87 wRC+, +5 DRS, +7 OAA
Again, no one is expecting McCormick to play 162 games, but there was no justification in 2023 for Meyers to get as much run as he did. Yes, he has always been a good defensive center fielder, but McCormick was too that season. Now, we can look at the 2025 numbers and they would almost be a mirror image of what we are seeing here. Meyers is better across the board. Once he is healthy, center field is his slot. Still, this has absolutely no bearing on what happened in 2023.
Now, it is fair to ask what this has to do with anything. That is a fair question. The easiest answer is that I am using this space to simply address a lazy argument that bugs me to no end. “Dusty Baker ended up being right.” Sure, if we are talking about betting on the total sum of a player over his whole career than Baker might have been right. He was not right in 2023 and the club overall suffered for it. Would they have won the ALCS? Who the heck knows on that one, but they clearly would have been at least two or three games better in the regular season if he had played McCormick and Diaz more often.
However, the biggest reason why it matters is because it matters right now. Joe Espada’s job is to play the current roster to the best of his ability RIGHT NOW. I’ll give a perfect example by looking at two player comparisons and see what we notice. I will treat it like the Player A and Player B tests that I have used before just for the fun of it.
Player A: .229/.286/.374, 12 HR, 37 runs, 47 RBI
Player B: .259/.342/.518, 9 HR, 22 Runs, 27 RBI
This is a trick question because both players are Christian Walker. The first one is Walker before the break and the second one is after the break. Obviously, this is where things get dicey. As an analyst both matter. I cannot simply erase the first two months of the season and say they didn’t happen. For Joe Espada, the second player is far more relevant. This likely impacts how often he plays and where he hits in the lineup. If Espada only looked at the overall numbers, he would be tempted to hit Walker lower in the order. Yet, those overall numbers might not completely encapsulate the player that Walker is right now. Here is another example.
Player A: .277/.347/.418, 7 HR, 39 Runs, 39 RBI
Player B: .139/.203/.204, 1 HR, 8 Runs, 10 RBI
It should be pretty obvious who this is. Here is the trick of time though. Cam Smith may very well be an all-star level player in 2027. I think any of us could see the progression and how that might look. 2027 has no bearing on 2025 and who Smith was in the first half has a little bit of bearing on the second half, but mostly we are looking at someone that is as close to an automatic out as you can get.
It’s not as simple as saying, “don’t play Smith.” He is still practically a Gold Glove fielder in right field and there is always the possibility that he can break out of the slump and become the player he was in the first half. He can’t do that unless he plays. Still, you can (and Espada has most of the time) mitigate the damage by dropping him in the batting order. Simply put, the player Smith will be has little relevance to the player he is right now. Espada has to deal with the player he is right now.
Add all this up and you get a very difficult job. A manager has to somehow marry the aggregate with the right now. Some of that involves deeper analysis. Some of it involves playing hunches. Some of it involves actually watching the player and predicting when performance will improve or slide. The back of the baseball card is all well and good when I’m doing the Hall of Fame Index or putting on our GM hat. The manager has a different view and watching performance two years after the fact doesn’t erase the sins from 2023.