With the young talent in the system, the Werth contract rolling off, and two aces locked in for the foreseeable future, I don't see the window closing. The Harper window is closing, so they need to mitigate that. This is an interesting move. I have mixed feelings. I have never liked Dusty, but it seemed that his ability to be a players manager was what this talented team needed to at least perform during the regular season, stay loose and focused. I can second guess a lot of Dusty moves, but he wasn't the one failing to hit. Any really critical decisions shouldn't be left to a manager anyway. That seems ridiculously old school. The organization has the responsibility to make sure things are managed within certain parameters if they are seen as important (e.g. decisions on starters, when certain bullpen guys should be used, etc.) If there is a fundamental baseball disagreement on things, then you can't let the manager go rogue. Everything else looks like second guessing and 20/20 hindsight. If the brain trust didn't want Gio to start or Max to relieve, then it shouldn't have happened anyway. But doubtful that was the case.
This is one of those "standard decisions". When you have an expectation to progress to the next round and fail, you dump the manager. Rizzo getting axed would be the next "standard decision." Doesn't always seem fair or logical, but it happens all the time. They just better have a quality replacement in mind, or they risk blowing up the chemistry, which seemed like the one thing Dusty was good at handling. If on the other hand, certain key players were less than supportive, then that could have factored in as well.
My thought on this is that, if you thought Dusty Baker was a good hire 2 years ago, what has he done that you did not expect to convince you that he was not as good of a manager now as you thought you hired?
2 years ago, you knew his record and his reputation. You knew he had a track record of not being the greatest in game, single game manager. You knew you were hiring a guy who could produce good regular season records. He's produced the very good regular season records. He's done a great job of adjusting to team weaknesses in the regular season. He found a way around a weak bullpen the first 3 months of the year, and he put guys like Wilmer Difo and Adrian Sanchez in a position to succeed after they had had mediocre minor league careers. He had to deal with 14 different outfielders this season but made it functional. He helped to get value out of Solis this year when he had a rotten first half. Even in the playoffs, he showed he was more receptive to "modern" thinking when he did things like bring in Scherzer in relief. So what has he done to now convince you he's not the guy you hired or even something better?
I was skeptical of the original hire, but if you thought he was worth hiring, I don't see what it is that he's done to convince you he's not the 'droid you were looking for.
