Houston Astros Nose Dive Without Dusty Baker’s Golden Touch

Last season, Dusty Baker “retired” from managing soon after the Astros were eliminated from the National League playoffs.

This MLBbro legend has a historical resume. Dusty Baker is a baseball savant with Hall of Fame accomplishments to back it up.

• First manager in MLB history to lead five different teams to division titles.

• Ninth manager to win both National League and American League pennants.

• Three-time Manager of the Year Award winner.

Let’s take a closer at his accomplishments with the Houston Astros:

• Baker finished with a 320-226 record in Houston, leading them to the playoffs four times, and collecting two AL pennants.

• He is one of three Black managers in the history of the game to win a World Series along with Dave Roberts (Los Angeles Dodgers, 2020) and Cito Gaston (Toronto Blue Jays, 1992 and 1993).

• His final game as a manager was a Game 7 ALCS loss to the Texas Rangers narrowly missing three World Series appearances.
• Bottom line, Dusty Baker brought the Astros out of the era of the sign-stealing scandal of the 2017 World Series. Something that the franchise needed more than the wins and championships.

It didn’t take long for the San Francisco Giants to hire Baker as a “Special Adviser” to baseball operations.

Something that the President of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi was very happy about when our MLBbro O.G. was first hired.

Via Yahoo Sports

“I was fortunate enough to get to know Dusty when we overlapped in the organization in 2019, and I’m excited to get to work with him again,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said in a statement. “We’ve had a chance to meet in person and discuss our shared vision of bringing championship baseball back to San Francisco. I learn something new in every interaction with him and look forward to leaning on his experience and perspective on the game.”

 

Houston Astros Lost Without Dusty

 

Well in this week’s episode of “Life Comes At You Fast” the Major League Baseball edition, the Houston Astros have fallen off the cliff as World Series contenders.

As of this writing, Houston is 7-16, losers of two straight, and have lost seven of their last ten.

In short, the Astros’ championship culture ended with Dusty Baker’s press conference.

The San Francisco Giants are two games out of first place in the NL West.

But are the baseball gods punishing the Houston Astros?

It’s peculiar to give Dusty Baker or anyone with his track record of success and baseball acumen continuous one-year extensions making the job difficult with lame duck situations. But for Baker to receive them leading the team to two World Series seasons and coming up one game short in two others, it’s plain to see Houston didn’t fully appreciate Dusty Baker and at times didn’t share the same baseball philosophy.

Baker’s final season with the Astros was an uneasy partnership instead of a united front. Our MLBbro was criticized for his lineups that sometimes did not include Chas McCormick.

So instead of having conversations about Dusty Baker being in the G.O.A.T. conversation for all managers instead of just MLBbro managers…

Distractions that might have cost Baker and his crew a chance at one more championship.

Dusty Baker Always Figured Out A Way To Win 

While Dusty Baker figured out ways to win despite injuries and inconsistent play at times last season, this year Houston has bottomed out, particularly on the pitching mound.

• Houston has the second-worst ERA (Colorado Rockies have the worst) in baseball.

• The Astros pitchers collectively over 203 innings pitched among the starters.

• JP France and Hunter Brown both have ERA’s over 7.00.

• Even though Justin Verlander returned from the IL, Cristian Javier replaced him on Tuesday.

Even selling “building for the future” to the fanbase won’t work at this juncture. The Astros have the 27th ranked farm system in MLB.

MLBbro.com knows only one man who could guide Houston back to prominence, but he’s working in San Francisco.