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You'd think what would have me most excited about Dusty Baker's return to baseball is that he landed with a rival of the Cubs. While that's fantastic and the Cubs will likely have greater success being the Reds, it's the opportunity to hear more of Dusty's baseball philosophy that is the real win for fans of the game. Fanhouse and a few other blogs touched on this yesterday, but this comment from Baker was too great to not pass along to those of you who might have missed it.
He's long been "against OBP" as a key stat, best exemplified by the free swinging and sucking 2005 Chicago Cubs. Well he was asked about it again over the weekend and came up with this gem:
"I'm big on driving in runs and scoring runs," Baker said. "Guys in the middle should score about close to equal to what they drive in. On-base percentage, that's fine and dandy. But a lot of times guys get so much into on-base percentage that they cease to swing. It's becoming a little bit out of control.He's big on driving in runs ... BUT getting guys on base isn't as important. That's awesome. Welcome back, Dusty. I never realized how badly I'd miss you.
"What you do is run the pitcher's count up, that helps," Baker said. "You put him in the stretch, that helps. But your job in the middle is to either score them or drive them in. The name of the game is scoring runs. Sometimes, you get so caught up in on-base percentage that you're clogging up the bases."
Good luck Cincinnati, you'll be hoping Octoberfest comes in June after two months of Baker pressers.
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