Reds Fire Dusty Baker After Early Playoff Exit

The Cincinnati Reds fired manager Dusty Baker three days after the club lost the National League Wild Card game to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  In his six years at the helm, Baker took the Reds to the playoffs three times, and each time the club lost in the first round.  The Reds also lost five in a row at the end of the 2013 regular season, which gave the Pirates the home field in the Wild Card game.

There’s no question that Baker’s teams can win games.  In 20 years of managing with Giants, Cubs, and Reds, Baker has a career managerial record of 1671-1504, a .526 winning percentage.  He has been less successful in the post season.  Baker managed the Giants to the National League Pennant in 2002 but San Francisco lost the World Series in seven games that year to the then Anaheim Angels.  That was his only World Series appearance as a manger to date.  He came close to making it with the Cubs in 2013, but Chicago lost the National League Championship Series to the Marlins 4 games to 3 after leading the series 3-1.

Baker has been criticized in the past for some of his personnel decisions, especially for having young, hard throwing pitchers pitch too many innings and injure their arms, often curtailing their careers.  Two that immediately come to mind are Mark Prior and Kerry Wood of the Cubs.  Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports makes the case that the Reds’ players gave up on Baker, and a change was inevitable.

Experienced managers with good won-lost records tend to be recycled in baseball, and Baker could again manage at the big league level.  At 64, he might be interested in stepping away from that pressure cooker (he was hospitalized with a heart problem during the 2012 season) and taking a different job in baseball, perhaps in a front office capacity or in a broadcast booth.