The Washington Nationals hired Dusty Baker on Tuesday, ending the club’s search after talks with former Padres skipper Bud Black fell through.
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Black agreed to become manager when general manager Mike Rizzo offered the job last Wednesday. The problem came down to money with Black only being offered a one-year, $1.6 million deal.
Baker is a three time victor of the National League Manager of the Year and helped lead three different teams to the postseason. Baker also manager the Chicago Cubs and, most recently, the Cincinnati Reds, who fired him in 2013.
Theodore N. Lerner, the Nationals’ managing principal owner, lucked out by getting Baker in a process that gave the Nationals a black eye.
By comparison, former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Matttingly received a four-year deal from Miami. Should Stephen Strasburg (that is, if he doesn’t get traded) be starting to sweat?
Or as Kevin Draper of Deadspin put it, “Nobody is going to be choking the star player in Dusty Baker’s dugout”.
Baker undoubtedly will change the clubhouse vibe and dazzle the power brokers in Washington with his infectious personality. When you go down the road with somebody, especially when it comes to the managers, this is quite surprising. Ask Matt Williams or the long line of managers who couldn’t properly keep control of their ballclubs throughout the grind of a regular Major League Baseball season. With the 17th most wins in baseball history, Baker stands second among active managers behind only the San Francisco Giants’ Bruce Bochy.
Wellstone Books published Baker’s first-person account of his upbringing in the ’60s – featuring his trip to the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where he got turned on to Jimi Hendrix – and the wide variety of music that influenced him and intertwined races and cultures. They don’t like to pay managers. But Rizzo and Baker must work together quickly to settle several concerning issues before the Nationals head back to Viera, Fla., in mid-February to begin spring training. His aloof personality just doesn’t line up with needing to keep players loose and it could be a small part of why the Nationals just couldn’t get things together down the stretch.
We wonder if the 66-year old Baker, about as old-school manager as you’ll find is a good fit for Washington but the Nationals seemingly are never concerned about such things.
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Baker did, however, say that he hadn’t received official word that he was out of the running for the job opening and as of last night, he was reportedly back in the running, and this morning he was announced as the new manager.
