The Case For Don Baylor

Friday, October 01 2010 @ 12:41 PM EDT

Contributed by: John Northey

Good ol' Don Baylor. Attached by the SABR crowd regularly (myself included) and loved by old school types including Cito Gaston. Lets see what the case is for him and if he could be the ideal manager for a young team in the toughest division in baseball™.

Mr. Baylor has been a manager in Colorado for 6 years and for the Cubs for 2 1/2 years. During those 8 1/2 years he was 440-469 so his W-L isn't the best while he only reached 2nd place once (the famous 1995 Rockies, making the playoffs in their 3rd year).

As stated, those Rockies were an expansion team and he had little talent to work with. His first year he had a rotation with just one guy getting to the 20 start level, but 6 others with 10+. Of those 6 three were 24 and for guys with 8+ starts none were 30+. Those 3 24 year olds were...

David Nied: hot prospect, cracked 100 for ERA+ at 25 but threw less than 10 innings after the strike.
Butch Henry: traded mid-season to Montreal, threw 352 innings post-93 with a 146 ERA+ but missed 1996 with injuries
Kent Bottenfield: who Colorado got for Henry, had great years in relief for the Cubs, made the All-Star team with the Cards as a starter, then quickly ended his career

So of those 3 two had good careers, one had nothing. In his last year at Colorado they had 3 guys under 30 get 30+ starts (one was 23) plus 2 more sub-27's with 20+ starts.

Darryl Kile (29) - Colorado signed to a giant deal and regretted it
Pedro Astacio (29) - had his best years in Colorado (go figure)
Jamey Wright (23) - missed time the next year, but has 1311 innings since that season so he survived
John Thomson (24) - 2 very good years with Baylor (160 innings per year), horrid the next with injuries before becoming a decent back of the rotation guy (90-110 ERA+, 102 ERA+ post Baylor, 109 with)
Bobby Jones (26) - only 164 more ML innings post-Baylor with a 90 ERA+, 93 ERA+ with over 161 IP (99 ERA+ in Baylor's final year)

In spite of the insane environment in those days Baylor seems to have learned how to work with kids, his first batch had troubles but the last set all had some success either with Baylor or via decent careers after (Thomson, Wright for example). This suggests Baylor learned as he went.

Now for the Cub years...
In 2000 he received a team that was 67-95 the year before. Obviously Baylor was not good at finding decent teams to start with :P They'd proceed to lose 97 his first year, but climb over 500 the next (5 games out of a playoff spot) before playing at a 410 clip when he was fired 1/2 way through the season. His rotation that first year had sub-25's in Kerry Wood, Scott Downs, and Ruben Quevedo getting 15+ starts. Others getting starts while under 25 were Kyle Farnsworth, Joey Nation, Phil Norton. He also had former wonder-kid Todd Van Poppel who he shifted nearly full-time into the pen (just 2 starts) and while he pitched for Baylor he had an ERA+ of 138 over 161 IP - he never cracked 90 over a season otherwise in his career. The next year Juan Cruz was the only kid to be mixed in with 8 starts (Carlos Zambrano got 1 emergency start at age 20, threw just 70 pitches giving up 7 runs in 4 IP). In 2002 he had Mark Prior for awhile,

So what happened with those kids?

Juan Cruz: trouble as a starter early in 2002 was shifted to the pen. Seems to alternate good and bad years but still has a live arm today.
Kerry Wood: Already had been on the DL pre-Baylor, at 120+ pitches just twice in 2000 (2 of his last 3 games) with an 8 walk 70 pitch outing between those 2 games. Then in 2001 he had just one 120 pitch game (7 walks, 8 K's in 6 IP). In 2002 he had one 120 pitch game with Baylor, on 5 days rest with 5 days before his next start. Again, it looks like Baylor was treating him right with only crazy high walks causing longer pitch games (this one was 7 walks as well).
Scott Downs: Traded after 18 mediocre starts, would miss the next year with injuries then continue his mediocre to poor starting until he came here. You know the rest.
Ruben Quevedo: Traded to Milwaukee, was never anything special due to being grossly rushed by Atlanta (AAA at 20) then the Cubs.
Kyle Farnsworth: Moved to the pen quickly became an effective reliever who seems to alternate good with bad years
Mark Prior: Under Baylor he had 9 starts, 52 IP, with a 124 pitch start (on 5 days rest) followed by a 119 (4 days) followed by 6 days off. His other starts with Baylor were 94-111 pitches each. The next manager let him throw 135 (!) in a game then had him throw 130+ 3 times the next year plus 6 in the 120's at the age of 22 (Dusty Baker was that manager - lets stay far, far away from him ... please).
Carlos Zambrano: only had 2 starts with Baylor plus a fair amount in the pen in 2002, 3 times pitching 2 days in a row, never 3 days in a row.
The others were not noteworthy (too little time with Baylor).

So, what does that all mean? It means that Baylor is not a killer of young arms. He has always been given very poor teams, shifted them to contenders quickly, then was dumped fairly quickly by the teams once they had any issues (Colorado went from expansion to playoffs to over 500 for a couple years and as soon as they dropped under 500 he was dumped). The Cubs won their division the year following Baylor thanks in large part to Carlos Zambrano developing at 22, Prior being abused grossly, Wood even more abused (141 pitch game, 13 120+'s), and a very weak division (88 wins to get to the playoffs).

Generally Baylor is viewed as a good hitting coach but looking through this I'd say he knows how to handle kid arms - not perfectly but decently enough. His age is a negative, given he is 61 right now and will be 62 by mid-season next year. But if a steady hand is needed he is the ideal candidate who can be here for 4 years or so which should cover the start of the contending years with any luck. This would certainly be the best team he's ever been given a shot with.

48 comments

https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20101001124133398