Dusty Baker, Win or Lose, Will Have a Future Plaque in the Hall of Fame

Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker, having finished his 25th year as a skipper in Major League Baseball, is one win away from his first World Series Championship as a manager. Whether the Astros successfully close out the Philadelphia Phillies in the Fall Classic or not, this has been another campaign in which Baker significantly enhanced his resume for a plaque in Cooperstown.

Five years ago, after a crushing loss in the National League Division Series, Baker was fired as the manager of the Washington Nationals. Given that Dusty was 68 years old, it seemed as if his managerial career had ended. Baker and the fans of the teams he had skippered were seemingly cursed. Washington’s Game 5 loss in the NLDS represented the 10th consecutive postseason tilt in which a Baker-led team had a chance to clinch a series and failed to do so. Although Baker had an impressive 22-year managerial record at the time, many people felt that his lack of a World Series title would keep him out of the Hall of Fame.

As it turned out, Baker was given one last chance when a great team had been tarnished by a terrible scandal and needed a seasoned skipper to restore instant credibility. That team was the Houston Astros, who hired Baker in early 2020 after terminating manager A.J. Hinch for his role in the sign-stealing scandal from the 2017 World Series.

In 2021, in his second season at the helm of the Astros, Baker led the squad back to the Fall Classic and did so again in 2022. Last year, in the year in which the great Hank Aaron passed away, the baseball gods smiled upon the Atlanta Braves but that didn’t obscure the fact that a great baseball man was back on center stage in the Fall Classic.

This year, the Astros were the best team in the American League, winning 106 regular season games, the most ever for a team managed by Baker. In October, the Astros cruised through both the American League Division Series and League Championship Series, sweeping the Seattle Mariners in the ALDS and the New York Yankees in the ALCS. In the World Series against the Phillies, the Astros blew a 5-0 lead in Game 1, easily won Game 2, got blown out in Game 3, won with a combined no-hitter in Game 4, and narrowly won Game 5. Houston will have two chances at home to win the World Series in Games 6 and 7 (if necessary).

In this piece, we’ll recap Baker’s playing and managerial career and examine his worthiness for the Hall of Fame, even though, at the moment of this update, he has yet to secure that elusive World Series championship.

Cooperstown Cred: Dusty Baker (25 seasons as MLB manager)

• Giants (1993-2002), Cubs (2003-06), Reds (2008-13), Nationals (2016-17), Astros (2020-2022)
• 2,093-1,790 (.540) regular-season record; 2,143 total wins (including postseason)
• 2,093 regular-season wins are 9th most all-time
• Career: 253 games above .500; 12th best in MLB history since 1901
• Led teams to 12 playoff appearances, tied for 4th most in MLB history (behind Cox, Torre, La Russa)
• Won 90 or more games in 12 of his 25 seasons
• Won 95 or more games in 8 of his 25 seasons
• 3-time manager of the year (1993, 1997, and 2000)
• As a player: .278 BA, 242 HR, 1,013 RBI, 37.0 WAR in 19 MLB seasons

What follows is a brief biography of the baseball life of Dusty Baker, followed by a discussion of whether he will make it into the Hall of Fame.

(cover photo: Houston Chronicle/Karen Warren)

This piece was originally written in October 2017. It has been updated several times since then. Many portions from the original piece and the 2021 update have been retained in their entirety. As a result, the piece is quite long. If you’re time-constrained, I’ll fight back the tears while encouraging a scroll down to the 2022 season or the Hall of Fame case for/against Dusty Baker.

Playing and early coaching career

In Atlanta, Georgia, on April 8th, 1974, a 24-year-old outfielder named Johnnie B. “Dusty” Baker was in the on-deck circle when one of the most important moments in baseball history was taking place. Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run that night, breaking Babe Ruth’s all-time record.

The Atlanta Braves drafted Baker in the 26th round of the 1967 player draft when he was 18 years old. Baker was a California kid, and it was an adjustment for him going from a virtually all-white high school in California to playing in the minor leagues in the segregated south in the late 1960s. Baker had a few cups of coffee with the Braves from 1968 to 1971 before becoming the team’s full-time centerfielder in 1972 and told the Washington Post that Aaron had told his mother, on the week he was drafted, that he would look after Baker as if he were his own son.

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Baker had four solid seasons as a starting outfielder in Atlanta and then, after the 1975 campaign, was the key player in a 6-player deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers that sent him back to his home state. The trade sent Dusty from a cellar-dweller to a team perennially challenging for the postseason.

In his second season in L.A., the Dodgers won the N.L. West and advanced to the World Series, thanks partly to Baker’s efforts in the NLCS against Philadelphia, a series in which he was named the MVP (hit .357 with 2 HR, 8 RBI, and a 1.295 OPS). The Dodgers lost the World Series in 1977 and 1978 (to the New York Yankees), but Baker was one of the team’s postseason stars, hitting .324 throughout the playoffs for both seasons.

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In 1981, the strike-shortened season, the Dodgers finally broke through against the Yankees, capturing their first World Series title since 1965. Baker only hit .213 in the ’81 postseason, but his teammates came through to give Dusty his first taste of World Championship bubbly.

Baker spent two more campaigns wearing Dodger Blue before playing his final three seasons as a part-time player in the Bay Area for both San Francisco (in 1984) and Oakland (in ’85 and ’86).

Baker began his coaching career with the Giants in 1988, serving as manager Roger Craig’s first base coach. Dusty took over as the team’s hitting coach in 1989. Coincidentally or not, left fielder Kevin Mitchell and first baseman Will Clark had career years with the stick, finishing 1st and 2nd in the MVP balloting, leading the Giants to their first pennant since 1962. Unfortunately, the earthquake-delayed ’89 series between the Giants and Oakland A’s ended in a four-game sweep for Oakland.

San Francisco Giants (1993-2002)

The Giants, under Craig’s leadership, slumped in 1991 and 1992, finishing with a 72-90 record in ’92, and Craig was fired on December 1st. A couple of weeks later, Baker was hired, with General Manager Bob Quinn calling the novice manager the “perfect fit.” Baker had a nice “welcome gift” as a first-year manager in the form of the reigning N.L. MVP Barry Bonds, who had signed a six-year free-agent contract with the team a week earlier.

Bonds delivered another MVP season in his first year with San Francisco. Along with third baseman Matt Williams and second baseman Robby Thompson, the Giants’ offense flourished, and the Giants went from a 72-win team to a 103-win team. Alas, this was the final season before the advent of the Wild Card, and the Giants fell one game short in the N.L. West to the 104-win Atlanta Braves.

Having lost Clark to free agency and Thompson to injury, the ’94 squad regressed and went 55-60 in the strike-shortened ’94 campaign. Things got worse in 1995; the team’s best starting pitchers from 1993 (Billy Swift and John Burkett) signed free-agent contracts elsewhere in the 1994-95 off-season. With limited offensive production outside of Bonds and Williams and a pitching staff with the highest ERA in the N.L. outside of Colorado, the Giants sagged to a 67-77 record. The ’96 edition was even worse, finishing at 68-94. Still, despite finishing 41 games under .500 for three years, Giants ownership stuck with Dusty.

The 1997 version of the Giants resumed their winning ways, despite the controversial trade of the four-time All-Star Williams to Cleveland for a package featuring underachieving second baseman Jeff Kent. Baker gave a vote of confidence to the newly acquired second sacker, installing him behind Bonds in the lineup, and the buttoned-up Kent flourished in the role. The Giants returned to the playoffs in ’97 before getting dispatched in a three-game sweep by the Florida Marlins.

With Bonds and Kent anchoring the middle of the lineup, the Giants averaged 91 wins per season from ’97 to 2002, getting to the playoffs again in 2000 and 2002. In the latter season, of course, the team was on the brink of winning the World Series before blowing a 5-0 lead in Game 6, which was the beginning of Dusty’s October curse. Baker used four different pitchers in relief of Russ Ortiz in the 7th and 8th innings of that pivotal game against the Anaheim Angels. All four relievers contributed to the 6-run rally that led the Angels to victory in the game, and, ultimately, the series.

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With Baker at the helm, the Giants’ 6-year run was fueled by Kent and Bonds (and, for the last few years, Barry’s PED fuel). Managing those two distinct personalities was no easy task. Remember that Kent was a nobody in the spring of 1997, a new player on the team. But that didn’t stop him from putting Bonds “in his place” (teammate J.T. Snow’s words, not implying any racial overtones) when he refused to give up a front-row seat on the team bus when the superstar player insisted, “Dude, get in the back, that’s my seat.” Kent’s reply was, “I’m not moving; I was here first. You came after me. You sit in the back.” 

Both Bonds and Kent were notoriously prickly with each other and with the media. In March 2001, my last year at ESPN, I sat down to interview Kent (at the time the reigning N.L. MVP) and, just because I uttered the name “Barry Bonds,” he stood up and said, “I’m leaving if that’s what this interview is about.” I had to calm him down, reassuring him that it was a baseball-related question. The point to this story is that not just any manager could keep the cohesion of those teams together with his two biggest stars maintaining a Cold War posture towards each other (which once or twice erupted into fisticuffs) in the dugout or clubhouse. Pitching coach Rich Donnelly told the New York Times: “how Dusty handled that? It was probably like Arthur Mercante, the great referee. ‘O.K. Break, now box.’”

“On the field, we’re fine, but, off the field, I don’t care about Barry and Barry doesn’t care about me. Or anybody.”

— Jeff Kent (to Sports Illustrated, in 2002).

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Chicago Cubs (2003-2006)

While Bonds and Kent were feuding with each other, Baker was feuding with Giants management and, without a contract for 2003, decided to leave. It didn’t take the three-time manager of the year much time to find another gig; he signed a four-year contract with the Chicago Cubs, a deal that made him the second-highest-paid skipper in the game to Joe Torre. The Cubs had gone 67-95 in 2002, finishing next to last in the N.L. Central. In his first season at Wrigley Field, Baker secured the N.L. Central with a 88-74 record (a 31-game improvement) and led the Cubbies to within one game of their first World Series since 1945 before the infamous “Bartman” game.

In Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS against the Florida Marlins, a fan (Steve Bartman) seemingly prevented left fielder Moises Alou from catching a foul fly ball off the bat of Luis Castillo down the left field line. (Alou, by the way, later admitted he would not have caught the ball anyway). At the time (with one out in the 8th inning), the Cubs had a 3-0 lead with a runner on 2nd base. By the time Castillo came to bat again in the inning, the Marlins had scored 8 runs. They went on to win the series in the 7th game and beat the Yankees in the World Series.

Some of the failures of Baker’s teams in October can be attributed to his decisions, particularly with his handling of his starting pitchers. The Bartman at bat to Castillo wound up in a 9-pitch walk, putting starter Mark Prior’s pitch count over 110. Baker left him in for three more batters, all of whom reached base, the last of whom (Derrek Lee) hit a two-run double that tied the score. However, what is forgotten is that the second of those batters (Florida rookie Miguel Cabrera) hit a ground ball that went straight through the legs of shortstop Alex Gonzalez. Baker didn’t make the normally sure-handed Gonzalez do his best Bill Buckner impersonation, but the error is part of the tapestry upon which Baker’s October curse was woven.

It doesn’t matter. The Cubs lost the game and, ultimately, the NLCS.

Sadly for the long-suffering fans, the tease of 2003 was not followed up by another trip to the postseason; Cubs would not return to October baseball in the final three years of Baker’s contract. The team actually improved to 89 wins in 2004, but that was only good enough for third place in the Central. In 2005, the Cubs sagged to 79 wins, followed by a full plummet to a 66-96 record in 2006, the worst season in the managerial career to date for the toothpick-chewing skipper.

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Cincinnati Reds (2008-2013)

After a year off to serve as an analyst for ESPN, Baker returned to the dugout with the Cincinnati Reds in 2008. Unlike his first two managerial stints, Baker was not able to score a first-year turnaround, but, in 2010, he did lead the team to its first playoff appearance since 1995. Unfortunately, the Reds were swept in the NLDS by the two-time defending N.L. Champion Philadelphia Phillies. After an off-year in 2011, the Reds won 97 games in 2012, winning the division title and earning a matchup in the NLDS with Dusty’s former squad, the Giants.

Baker’s October curse was especially acute in 2012, with the Reds blowing a 2-0 series lead to the Giants. Having won the first two games in San Francisco, the Reds had two opportunities at home to close out the series. In Game 3, a 1-1 pitcher’s duel, reliever Jonathan Broxton allowed the first two runners in the top of the 10th to reach on singles. Broxton struck out the next two batters and then induced a bouncing ground ball to third base. No problem, right? Manning the hot corner for the Reds was 8-time Gold Glove Glove Award winner Scott Rolen, a current candidate for the Hall of Fame. But Rolen couldn’t combat Dusty’s October curse. He briefly bobbled the grounder, allowing Buster Posey to score the go-ahead run, giving the Giants a 2-1 lead, one they would not relinquish. The Giants won the next two games easily and captured the Fall Classic a couple of weeks later.

In 2013, the Reds won 90 games, which was only good for third in the N.L. Central. They lost the Wild Card Game to the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Baker was fired after the season.

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Washington Nationals (2016-2017)

In a game moving towards analytics, the “old school” Dusty Baker, at 64 years old, seemed like an unlikely candidate to get another job as a big-league skipper. But, as fate would have it, two years later, a perennial contending but dysfunctional franchise needed a “players manager.”

The 2015 Washington Nationals were considered a pre-season favorite to win the World Series. They already had a strong starting rotation (Jordan Zimmerman, Gio Gonzalez, and Stephen Strasburg) and, in the off-season, added Max Scherzer. In addition, this was the season in which their young phenom, Bryce Harper, would break out as the league’s MVP. But despite their extraordinary collection of talent, the Nationals faded in the second half of the season, finishing with just 83 wins (a year after winning 96). Taking the blame was second-year manager Matt Williams, and so, in a bit of irony, Baker’s former star third baseman in San Francisco was replaced by his former skipper.

In his first season in the nation’s capital, Baker immediately turned the Nats’ fortunes around, leading them to 95 wins and the N.L. East title. In the NLDS (against the Los Angeles Dodgers), Washington won Games 2 and 3 after falling to Clayton Kershaw in Game 1. The Dodgers ace was on the hill again for Game 4 in Los Angeles with the Nationals one win away from a berth in the NLCS. After 6 innings, the Dodgers had a 5-2 lead, but an 8-pitch walk earned by Harper put two runners on and sent Kershaw to the showers. The Nats rallied to tie the game off two Dodger relievers. Sadly for Washington, Chase Utley delivered an RBI single in the bottom of the 8th to deliver the Dodgers a 6-5 win.

Still, Washington had a chance to wrap up the series back at home at Nationals Park in Game 5. with Scherzer on the bump. Having posted his 2nd career 20-win season in a year that would lead to his 2nd Cy Young Award, Scherzer and the Nats were heavy favorites against the Dodgers and veteran lefty Rich Hill. The Nats had a 1-0 lead after 6 innings, but Joc Pederson led off the 7th with a first-pitch home run. With Scherzer sitting at 99 pitches, in this case, perhaps Baker removed his ace too early. Just as in Game 6 of the 2002 World Series, Baker watched as four relief pitchers gave up hits and runs, three runs specifically. The Dodgers hung on for a 4-3 victory, with Kershaw coming out of the bullpen to finish the game.

Washington returned to the postseason in 2017, easily winning the N.L. East with 97 regular-season victories. In the NLDS, the Nats faced off against Joe Maddon’s Chicago Cubs. Scherzer had another Cy Young campaign but had to exit his final regular-season start in the 4th inning with a hamstring injury. As a result, he wasn’t available in the first two games of the series. Still, the Nats and Cubs split those two games.

Scherzer took the hill in Game 3. After 6.1 hitless innings and 97 pitches, he gave up a double to Ben Zobrist. As the data-driven baseball industry scrutinizes every bullpen move a manager makes, the old-school Dusty had developed a quicker hook and took “Max Effort Max” out of the game. He brought in left-hander Sammy Solis to pitch to Chicago’s power-hitting lefty Kyle Schwarber. Maddon countered with right-handed Albert Almora, who hit a game-tying single. Baker was criticized for bringing in a young pitcher with a 5.88 ERA instead of hanging for one more batter with his ace. No matter what move Baker would make in a close postseason game, it always seemed to go wrong. The Cubs ultimately won the game 2-1.

In Game 4 (in Chicago). Strasburg tossed 7 scoreless innings (with 12 strikeouts), leading to a 5-0 victory and a Game 5 winner-take-all matchup in Washington.

Game 5

Game 5 of the NLDS epitomized the eternal curse that had been following Dusty Baker ever since Game 6 of the 2002 World Series, which started a streak of 9 consecutive times in which Baker’s teams failed to win a game in which they had the opportunity to clinch a postseason series win.

In the 2nd inning of Game 5, when Michael A. Taylor hit a three-run home run off Kyle Hendricks, Nationals fans had to feel optimistic that Baker’s curse and the hex that seemed to follow their team were about to be lifted. The Win Probability Expected (WPE) was 82%. What does that mean? It means that the statistical odds of a team winning a game in which they hold a three-run lead with no outs in the bottom of the 2nd inning is 82%. A hypothetical computer simulation could replay the game from that point a million times, and the Nationals would win 82% of those simulations.

By the 5th inning, the Cubs had clawed back, but the Nats still had a 4-3 lead. Dusty had already replaced starter Gio Gonzalez and, to start the 5th, he turned to Scherzer, pitching on two days of rest.

If you have a lead with Max Scherzer on the mound, curses be damned, you’ve got the winning hand. And so it seemed as Scherzer quickly dispatched with Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo. But then the baseball gods, not ready to end the postseason misery for Baker, concocted the most improbable and foul brew of events. First, it was an infield hit by Willson Contreras, followed by a bloop single by Zobrist, a hard-hit double by Addison Russell (just out of the reach of a diving Anthony Rendon at 3rd base), which gave the Cubs a 5-4 lead.

As disappointing as it was to surrender that lead, Scherzer seemingly did his job to limit the damage, striking out Javier Baez, which should have ended the inning.  But the ghouls that for so long tortured Baker weren’t done. Catcher Matt Wieters couldn’t handle the strikeout pitch; Baez raced to first, and Wieters threw the ball into right field, allowing another run to score. The ball should have been called dead because Baez’s bat hit Wieters on the head at the end of his swing. But it wasn’t called dead.

Wieters then committed catchers interference on the next batter (Tommy La Stella), loading the bases, which allowed a fourth run to score when Scherzer hit the batter after that (John Jay) on the foot. All told, Scherzer, Wieters, the Nationals, and the ghosts and goblins at Nationals Park had turned a 4-3 lead until a 7-4 deficit. The Win Probability Expected had plummeted from a high of 82% in the 2nd inning to 20% when the top of the 5th inning ended.

ESPN.com’s Sam Miller calculated the odds of the bizarre and unlikely sequence of events in the top of the 4th inning at approximately 2.2 billion to one.

Anyway, after the disastrous 5th, Dusty’s team did not wither away. Washington pecked away at the Cubs’ lead and, down 9-7 in the 8th inning, seemed to have Chicago’s closer, Wade Davis, on the ropes. Davis had never saved a game in his career while getting more than three outs, but Maddon was asking him to get seven outs for this save in this game. Davis walked the first two batters of the inning, but pinch-hitter Adam Lind hit the first pitch he saw into a double play. The Nats followed that with two more singles, plating a run and putting the tying run on 2nd base. Alas, Trea Turner never had the chance to drive in that run because Washington’s backup catcher Jose Lobaton was picked off first base by the Cubs catcher Contreras. Curses!

Davis, bailed out by the double play and a pick-off, gutted out three outs in the ninth inning, striking out Bryce Harper to end the game and the Nationals’ season.

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For the 10th time in 15 years, one of Baker’s teams was on the brink of advancing to the next round of the playoffs, needing just one win to seal the deal, and for the 10th time, his team failed to win. So here is the complete record, going back to 2002, when his San Francisco Giants were one game away from winning the World Series.

MWP = Maximum Win Probability Expected, which indicates the high point of the statistical odds that Baker’s team would win each game.

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As you can see, with the singular exception of Game 5 of the 2003 NLDS, Dusty’s teams lost every single game in which they had a chance to clinch ever since that infamous Game 6 in 2002.

The Game 5 loss cost Baker his job, even though Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo referred to him as a “Hall of Fame manager.”

The Houston Astros Need a Skipper

After being fired by the Nationals, it seemed as if Dusty Baker’s managerial career was over. Two years after being fired, Dave Martinez skippered Washington to a World Series title over the Houston Astros. Then, in the 2019-20 offseason, a scandal enveloped the Astros that dated back to their 2017 championship victory over the Dodgers.

The team came under fire and ridicule for having participated in a widespread sign-stealing scheme. The sign-stealing scandal resulted in one-year suspensions for manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow; team owner Jim Crane subsequently fired the two. The collateral damage led to the Boston Red Sox parting ways with manager Alex Cora and the New York Mets letting go of their skipper Carlos Beltran. Both Cora and Beltran were intimately involved with the mechanics of the sign-stealing plot. (Boston rehired Cora in advance of the 2021 campaign).

In the aftermath of the scandal, the Astros needed a skipper who would instantly restore credibility to the franchise. Although ace starting pitcher Gerrit Cole had left as a free agent for the New York Yankees, Houston retained a team of supremely talented players. However, those players were about to go through a gauntlet of name-calling, boos, and taunts from opposing fans on a daily basis. This team needed a players’ manager, one who knows how to handle a clubhouse and how to take the heat off his players. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale called the then-70-year-old Baker the “perfect choice” for Houston.

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As we all know, the 2020 season was delayed by several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dusty’s debut as the Astros’ skipper finally occurred on July 24th in Houston, in front of empty stands at Minute Maid Park. Justin Verlander, the reigning Cy Young Award winner, pitched 6 innings of 2-run ball and earned the victory over the Seattle Mariners. Unfortunately, Verlander had to leave the game with a forearm strain. He hoped to come back in 2020 but, ultimately, had to undergo Tommy John surgery and has not pitched since.

Even though the Astros were without both Cole and Verlander in the 60-game regular season, the team’s pitching wasn’t bad. Surprisingly, it was the offense that struggled: the entire infield (Yuli Gurriel, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, and Alex Bregman) had substandard offensive campaigns. The Astros played under .500 ball in Baker’s maiden season with the team (29-31) but still made the postseason because of the expanded playoffs.

Houston faced the Minnesota Twins in the “Wild Card” round of the playoffs. The Twins were favored, having gone 36-24 in the shortened season, best in the A.L. Central. However, Houston won two games in Minnesota in the “best of 3” format, which was good enough to advance to the ALDS. The second win (sparked by Correa’s 7th-inning, go-ahead solo home run) broke Baker’s 10-loss streak in potential clinchers.

In the ALDS, playing at a neutral site (Dodger Stadium), Houston faced off against the Oakland Athletics, who had won the A.L. West, also with a 36-24 record. Houston won the first game in a 10-5 slugfest (with Correa swatting two homers) and then took Game 2 by a 5-2 mark behind lefty Framber Valdez, with George Springer hitting two taters. Game 3 presented a series-clinching opportunity for Baker and the Astros. The A’s teed off with 5 home runs to win 9-7, but Houston prevailed 11-6 in Game 4, thanks to two home runs from Michael Brantley and another HR and 5 RBI for Correa. Having waited 17 years since his previous series-clinching win, Baker now had a pair of them in 2020.

Ultimately, Baker’s postseason ride would come to an end. The Tampa Bay Rays had a 40-20 regular-season record, best in the league, and defeated the Astros in a 7-game ALCS, played in “the bubble” in San Diego’s Petco Park. Still, the Astros could show pride that they battled back with three consecutive wins (after losing Games 1-3) to force a Game 7. Correa again redeemed his weak regular-season effort with the signature moment of the postseason for Houston with a walk-off home run to win Game 5.

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Although the season ended in disappointment, Astros fans could take pride that their new manager led the team to within one game of the Fall Classic. After 10 consecutive losses in clinching scenarios, Baker’s Astros went 2-2 in those games in 2020.

2021: Return to the Fall Classic

Fans returned to the ballpark in 2021, many of whom enjoyed taunting Astros players about the sign-stealing scandal. Dusty Baker also returned and guided the team to a 95-win season, which was good enough for the A.L. West title. It was the 7th time in his 24-year managerial career that one of Baker’s teams won at least 95 games. On this edition of the Astros, the four infielders who had subpar seasons in 2020 all returned to form. With right fielder Kyle Tucker and DH Yordan Alvarez also mashing, Houston scored the most runs in the American League. Dusty was also blessed with a solid pitching staff; led by Lance McCullers Jr. and Framber Valdez, the Astros posted the 4th best ERA in the league.

Baker’s Astros faced off in the ALDS against the Chicago White Sox, skippered by Hall of Famer Tony La Russa. The managerial matchup of Baker (72 years old) and La Russa (77 years old) represented the oldest pair of managers ever to appear in the postseason against each other. The two men actually played in one game together back in 1971, with the Atlanta Braves, at the end of La Russa’s brief MLB career and the beginning of Baker’s. Coming into the series, Baker’s and La Russa’s teams had evenly split the 208 previous contests played between their respective squads. In 2002, before Dusty’s postseason curse had begun, his Giants beat La Russa’s Cardinals in 5 games in the NLCS. The two men have had a long, adversarial, and not-always-pleasant history.

Thanks to 6.2 scoreless innings from McCullers, the Astros cruised to a 6-1 victory in Game 1 in Minute Maid Park. In Game 2, the two teams were tied after 6 innings before Houston’s bats erupted for 5 runs in the bottom of the 7th to secure a 9-4 victory. Houston had an opportunity to wrap up the series back in Chicago, but nothing comes easily for Dusty Baker. The Chisox clawed back into the series by battering a pair of Garcias (Luis and Yimi) for 9 runs in 3 innings, leading to a 12-6 win. With the Astros, however, the old ghosts no longer torture Baker for long. Houston easily cruised to a 10-1 victory in Game 4, setting up an ALCS rematch (from 2018) against the Boston Red Sox.

The Astros were without McCullers (forearm injury) for the ALCS. Boston and Houston split the first two games of the ALCS in Houston, with the Red Sox hitting grand slams in both the first and second innings of Game 2. When Kyle Schwarber also hit a grand slam in the bottom of the 2nd inning of Game 3 (leading to an easy 12-3 victory), it seemed as if Alex Cora’s Red Sox were too hot to stop.

The Astros beleaguered starting rotation had a 20.25 ERA in the first three games, with no starter making it to the 4th inning. In another year, Houston fans could have taken solace with Zack Greinke taking to the hill in Game 4, but the future Hall of Famer was slumping, having posted an 11.02 ERA in just 5 appearances since August 24th. Greinke lasted just 1.1 innings in Game 4 before Dusty relieved him and got 7.2 scoreless innings from his bullpen, helping them win a 9-2.

All of a sudden, the baseball gods, who had tortured Baker for so many years, who seemed to set him up for disappointment with McCullers’ injury and no length out of his starters, offered two brilliant starts by Valdez (Game 5) and Luis Garcia (Game 6), who combined for 13.1 innings of one-run ball. In Game 6, a clinching opportunity, Boston was never in the game. The Astros won 5-0 to send Dusty back to the Fall Classic for the first time in 19 years in a matchup against the Atlanta Braves.

Sadly for Baker and Astros fans, Houston’s starting pitchers weren’t able to provide much length in the World Series, with only Jose Urquidy (in Game 2) lasting as many as 5 innings. The Braves won the series in 6 games, thanks to solid starting pitching and a deep bullpen that limited the powerful Astros offense to just 4 total runs in Games 1, 3, 4, and 6 (including two shutouts). Of course, there will be nitpickers who will question some of Baker’s managerial moves. Citing just one example, did he have too quick a hook with Greinke in Game 4, after he had thrown four scoreless innings? That’s how I felt at the time but there’s also the “quit while you’re ahead” theory.

Ultimately, I think the nitpicking is silly. Managers set the table but the players have to eat. Valdez gave the Astros 8 brilliant innings in Game 5 of the ALCS but got tattooed in his two World Series starts (19.29 ERA). Overall, the Astros starting pitchers had a 7.20 ERA in the Fall Classic. On the offensive side, Yordan Alvarez hit .522 with 6 RBI as the ALCS MVP but then hit .100 with no ribbies in the World Series. The Astros led the A.L. in BA and OBP (3rd in SLG) during the regular season but slashed just .224/.298/.299 against the Braves.

2022: 106 Wins

The 2021 season ended in disappointment for Dusty Baker and the Houston Astros but the Astro faithful had every reason to be optimistic about the 2022 season. The main change was the return of two-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, who missed almost all of the previous two campaigns. Verlander responded with a season (18-4, 1.75 ERA) that will likely net him a third Cy Young trophy. Verlander was the leader of a deep staff that led the A.L. with a 2.90 team ERA.

Shortstop Carlos Correa departed as a free agent but rookie Jeremy Pena emerged as a worthy replacement; he’ll likely finish in the top three of the Rookie of the Year voting. Yordan Alvarez had a monster year (.306 BA, 37 HR, 97 RBI, 187 OPS+) while second baseman Jose Altuve had arguably his best campaign since he was the A.L. MVP in 2017.

After a relatively slow 11-11 start, the Astros got hot, winning 23 out of the next 30 games to open a 7.5-game lead in the A.L. West. The team cruised for the rest of the season, winning 106 games to win the West by 16 games over the Seattle Mariners.

In the newly expanded 12-team playoffs, the Mariners matched up in a three-game Wild Card series with the Toronto Blue Jays and won the series in a two-game sweep, setting up an ALDS matchup against Houston. In Game 1, the M’s pummelled Verlander for 6 runs and 10 hits in 4 innings to take a 6-2 lead. The Astros chipped away at the lead but still trailed 7-5 entering the bottom of the 9th inning. The Astros put two runners on against Paul Sewald, prompting M’s manager Scott Servais to summon left-handed starting pitcher Robbie Ray (the 2021 Cy Young winner) to face the lefty-swinging Alvarez with two outs and those two runners on base. Alvarez proceeded to swat Ray’s second offering deep to right field for a three-run walk-off home run, giving Houston an 8-7 victory. It was the first time in the history of postseason baseball that a player hit a walk-off home run to win a game with his team trailing by more than one run.

After the stunning Game 1 victory, the Astros followed up by winning Game 2 by a 4-2 score, with Alvarez bringing the thunder with a go-ahead, opposite field, two-run tater in the bottom of the 6th. In Game 3, back in Seattle, the team’s pitchers matched zeroes for a remarkable 17 innings before Pena hit a solo home run in the top of the 18th to lead the Astros to a three-game sweep and an ALCS rematch with the New York Yankees, who they defeated in both 2017 and 2019 to lead to a pair of World Series appearances.

In Game 1 of the ALCS, Verlander returned to his regular-season form; he dominated the Bronx Bombers with six innings of one-run ball, all while striking out 11 batters. The Astros won 4-2 and followed up with a Game 2 victory behind seven strong innings from Framber Valdez. The Astros then completed the sweep with two victories at Yankee Stadium, with ALCS MVP Pena again starring with a game-tying three-run HR in the top of the 3rd inning of Game 4. For the series, 10 Astros pitchers held the Yankees to a .162 batting average (.502 OPS). Aaron Judge, who hit 62 home runs in a magnificent season in which he’s a lock to be the A.L. MVP, went just 1 for 16 and made the last out of the series.

The 2022 World Series

The Houston Astros, back to the Fall Classic for the second year in a row under Dusty Baker, once again were matched up against an N.L. East team that won less than 90 games. In 2022, it was the 87-win Philadelphia Phillies, who were the third Wild Card in the new 12-team postseason party; the Phillies would not have made the playoffs in the previous 10-team format.

Regardless, the Astros came into the series heavily favored and got off to a 5-0 lead in Game 1, thanks to a pair of home runs by right fielder Kyle Tucker. With Verlander on the hill, victory seemed nearly certain, but the 39-year-old ace faltered in the 4th and 5th innings, giving up five runs to allow the Phillies to tie the game. After a battle of the bullpens, Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto hit a solo home run off Luis Garcia in the top of the 10th to give the Phillies an unlikely 6-5 victory.

The Astros won Game 2 behind another strong start by Valdez. With the series back in Philadelphia, the Phillies pounded Lance McCullers for five home runs in 4.1 innings. Phillies star Bryce Harper, who is having a breakout postseason, got things started with a big two-run blast in the first inning. Baker, who has sometimes been known to have a slow hook in his managerial career, left McCullers in to face the top of the Philadelphia lineup for the third time in the bottom of the 5th, with the Astros trailing 4-0. After Kyle Schwarber hit a massive home run to straightaway center field and Rhys Hoskins followed with a solo blast, it was 7-0 and the game was essentially over. The final score remained 7-0. Although many have questioned Baker’s decision to leave McCullers in for the fifth inning, the move ultimately saved Houston’s top relievers for both Games 4 and 5.

Game 4 was a classic. After getting shut out in Game 3, the Astros returned the favor in Game 4, with Christan Javier, Bryan Abreu, Rafael Montero, and Ryan Pressly combining for the first no-hitter in World Series history since Don Larsen’s perfect game in 1956.

Verlander returned to the bump for Game 5 with the big proverbial monkey on his back for having never won a World Series start in his first eight tries (he was 0-6 with a 6.07 ERA). The Astros got off to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first but the Phillies tied it up when Schwarber deposited Verlander’s second offering into the right field seats for a leadoff tater. The Astros’ ace battled for the rest of his five innings but managed to keep the Phillies from scoring again and left with a 2-1 lead thanks to a third-inning homer by Pena. Four Astros relievers (Hector Neris, Abreu, Montero, and Pressly) then combined to hold Philadelphia to just one run in the final four innings, with Pressly getting only the second five-out save of his career and Verlander getting that elusive Fall Classic win.

With a 3-2 series lead and the final two games scheduled at Minute Maid Park, the Astros are poised to give Dusty Baker that elusive World Series championship as a manager.

Will Dusty Baker Make it into the Hall of Fame?

I think any Hall of Fame analyst would agree that if the Astros go on to win the 2022 Fall Classic, Dusty Baker would finally have the “missing piece” of his Cooperstown resume. However, let’s suppose that the Phillies break Baker’s heart this weekend. Will Baker wind up in the Hall of Fame anyway? Will his regular-season record and well-earned reputation as a turnaround artist be enough to give him a plaque in Cooperstown?

There are really two questions in play here. The first is “will he?” The second is “should he?”

For the “will he” question, I believe that Dusty Baker will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Managerial candidates are voted upon by what is now known as the “Eras” Committees (formerly known as the Veterans’ Committees). The 16-member panels are customarily populated by six to seven Hall of Fame players, one or two Hall of Fame managers or general managers, a few other MLB executives, and a couple of long-time media members.

Three factors make me think Baker will get the call for the Hall.

1. He is well-liked and well-respected in the game, especially by current and former players alike. So, no matter what members fill that 16-person committee, he’s likely to have some strong advocates from the ranks of the players.
2. He has the numerical longevity (9th in career wins) to qualify on the “volume of work” test. He also has, despite many disappointments, the 12 different squads he has led to the postseason, which is the 4th most in history. Former players are likely to give him a pass for the bad luck of the Giants pitchers blowing the 5-0 lead to the Angels, the Bartman play, the Gonzalez error, the Rolen error, Scherzer’s 4-run inning in Game 5 in 2017, and the fact that the Braves outpitched the Astros in 2021.
3. He would be the first African-American manager to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

This last point is the most important and will not be overlooked when it comes time to vote for him. It’s not just that Baker would be the first; he’s the only candidate we’re likely to see for two decades. He is the only black man in the top 50 of all-time managerial wins. The late Frank Robinson is 58th, but Frank wasn’t a great skipper, and he’s already in the Hall of Fame as a star player. Cito Gaston won two World Series titles with the Toronto Blue Jays, but he only won 894 games, which is 75th on the all-time list.

In 2017, Baker was one of just two African-American managers in the majors, the other being Dave Roberts, who beat Baker and the Nats in the 2016 NLDS as the skipper of the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2021 and 2022, again, Baker and Roberts were the only two black managers in the majors. Roberts, who has now won three pennants and a World Championship, is a rising managerial star (albeit one that many Dodger fans love to hate), but he’s only 50 years old and has only been in the dugout for eight years. So it will be anywhere from 15-25 years before, maybe, if he maintains his success, Roberts will be a Cooperstown candidate.

It’s now been 75 years since Jackie Robinson broke the color line. There will soon be enormous institutional pressure to put a deserving black managerial candidate into the Hall of Fame. Because of Baker’s ranking on the all-time wins list, any claims that his induction was influenced solely by the color of his skin can be easily dismissed.

Does Dusty Baker Deserve to Make the Hall of Fame?

Now, to the other question: if we are to be color-blind, does the body of Baker’s work in the dugout merit a Cooperstown plaque?

The argument against comes down to three points. The first is obvious, that his teams lost 10 straight games in postseason-clinching scenarios before he took the reins in Houston. The second point is the argument that those failures are because Dusty Baker is not a great in-game manager, a deficiency that was magnified in October.

The third point against his Cooperstown candidacy is that Baker’s overall managerial record is skewed by reaping the benefits of Barry Bonds’ PED use. It’s true that Bonds turned himself into Superman starting with the 2000 season. In 2002, Bonds posted an 11.8 WAR (Wins Above Replacement), fueled by 46 home runs and 198 walks, leading to a ridiculous slash line of a .370 BA .582 OBP, and .799 SLG. The ’02 Giants made it to the playoffs as the N.L. Wild Card, finishing 3 games ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Without Bonds, the Giants wouldn’t have sniffed the 2002 postseason.

Points in Favor

Let me now make the argument in favor, starting with the basics.

1. His 2,093 wins are the 9th most in the history of baseball. It’s kind of apples to bowling balls but, for whatever it’s worth, being 9th is the managerial equivalent of 609 home runs (Sammy Sosa), 3,419 Hits (Carl Yastrzemski), or 354 Wins (Roger Clemens). All of the managers with more wins than Dusty have Hall of Fame plaques.
2. Dusty’s 2,093 wins are more than relatively recent inductees Tommy Lasorda, Dick Williams, Earl Weaver, and Whitey Herzog. Of course, it’s also true that Lasorda and Williams each won two World Series titles and that Weaver and Herzog won one each.
3. Baker’s record of being 303 games above .500 is the 12th best in MLB since 1901.

If Dusty doesn’t get that ring as a skipper, there is precedent for inducting a Hall of Fame manager from the modern era (since 1901) who doesn’t own a World Series Championship. Al Lopez won A.L. Pennants (but lost the World Series) with the 1954 Cleveland Indians and the 1959 Chicago White Sox. With Lopez being 683 wins behind Baker on the all-time wins list, it would seem that we have a title-free managerial comparison. There is a difference, though, and a big one. Lopez managed a remarkable 15 consecutive seasons without a losing record. In a primarily 154-game schedule, Lopez’s teams averaged 92 wins per year from 1951 to 1965.

The Bill James Formula for Managers

How do we reconcile the excellent overall regular-season record owned by Dusty Baker with so many postseason disappointments? Is there a formula to account for a manager’s ability to exceed expectations, such as turning a 72-win team into a 103-win team? Well, in fact, there is a formula, and it won’t surprise the avid, statistically-minded fan to know that it’s a formula created by sabermetric pioneer Bill James. The formula was designed by James to credit every manager with points for specific achievements, including total wins, wins above .500, exceeding expectations, and postseason success.

You can find more details on James’ site here, but the basics of the formula are this:

• One point for every 40 wins
• One point for every 10 games above .500
• For an individual season, one point for every 5 games a team exceeds expectations (see below for details)
• Three points for a Division Championship, three more for a pennant (6 total), and three more for a World Championship (9 total)

Here’s how the “exceeding expectations” points work: you take the team’s wins and losses from two years prior, add it to two times the previous year’s wins and losses, and then add 162 wins and losses (which is the natural drift to the center). EXAMPLE: the 1991 Giants went 75-87; the 1992 Giants went 72-90; in Baker’s first season, the team went 103-59. Based on James’ formula, the “expected” record would have been 76-86. Therefore, Baker’s team exceeded expectations by a whopping 27 games over .500. Managers are given a point for every 5 games over expectations. So Baker is credited with 5 points.

Anyway, James wrote this piece in February 2013: Baker had accumulated 94 manager points through the 2012 season by the formula. Since then, Dusty’s teams have won 512 more regular-season games (that’s 13 points), finished 154 games over .500 (another 15 points), won four division titles (3 points each), the pennants in 2021 and 2022 (another 3 points each), and earned 10 “exceed expectations” points. That’s 56 more points for a total of 150 on a scale that James says puts a manager into the Hall of Fame if they’re above 100. If the Astros win the World Series, he’ll be at 153 points.

(Disclaimer: I had to make some adjustments to the “exceed expectations” point formula due to the COVID-shortened 2020 season, so if James himself were doing this, it might have a very slightly different result. But only slightly different).

Anyway, let’s take a look at the Bill James points rankings for managers who debuted in 1967 or later (to start in the LCS era but give Dick Williams credit for his debut in the dugout in 1967).

WP Table Builder

In the James methodology, Baker gets a lot of credit for managing teams to records above expectations, better than even Sparky Anderson, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre, and fellow turnaround artists Davey Johnson, Lou Piniella, and Billy Martin. And, by these criteria, Baker is the 5th best manager of the LCS era, behind only proverbial giants (Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, Joe Torre, and Anderson).

Incidentally, if you’re surprised to see Bruce Bochy so low on this list, it’s because of his years managing the San Diego Padres, which gives him an under-.500 career record. In this writer’s opinion, his three World Championships will easily trump that record, and Bochy will make the Hall of Fame although his time on the ballot will have to wait because he decided to return to the dugout as the skipper of the Texas Rangers in 2023.

Anyway, by itself, this chart doesn’t confer a Cooperstown plaque to Dusty Baker; it’s based on a formula devised by one man, albeit the most brilliant man about baseball statistics who has ever walked the earth. The point is what the rankings tell us about the men they’re ranking. It’s giving Dusty Baker credit for his longevity, propensity to manage winning ball clubs, and ability to guide his team to exceed expectations.

Throughout his career, Baker has been given credit for being a great players’ manager, and for creating a winning atmosphere. After two years under Matt Williams, he was the perfect hire in Washington, and he led the team to two consecutive Division Titles. Then, the Houston Astros viewed Baker as the ideal hire for a talented team tainted by the controversy of the sign-stealing scandal, and he rewarded that faith with back-to-back ALCS appearances and the 2021 pennant.

The Hall of Fame is filled with men who were great players in the regular season but didn’t produce much in October. It’s rare for a Cooperstown-enshrined manager to fit that description, but if there were ever a manager worthy of the ultimate honor without a championship ring, it’s Dusty Baker.

This man was respected enough to be hired five times and was allowed to skipper his squads for 3,883 regular-season games and 96 more in the postseason. So is it fair to penalize him for 10 bad losses out of 3,979 games managed? I don’t think so.

Additionally, I think the historical significance of being the best African-American manager in history with the likely advocacy of multiple other Hall of Fame players will win the day. Dusty Baker’s going to get into the Hall of Fame. If he can seal the deal with a title this weekend, that will put the icing on his Cooperstown sundae. But he deserves to make it regardless.

Thanks for reading.

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