Dusty Baker, Pitcher Abuser

[crector]

Source:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/current/pap2003.htm

According to the Pitcher Abuse Points chart over at BaseballProspectus.com, Kerry Wood was the #1 abused pitcher by his manager in all of Major League Baseball during the 2003 season. Mark Prior ranks #3 on the list while Carlos Zambrano ranks #17.

Among White Sox pitchers in 2003, Bartolo Colon was the highest ranking at #25. All of the other Sox hurlers were well down the list. However, current Sox FA target Sidney Ponson ranks #13. Hopefully, KW is aware of this.

Given the high placement the main trio of the Cubs's starters on the list, there is a strong likelihood that at least one of them will require surgery next year and miss a large part of the season. That should suffice to nix whatever hopes that they have for the playoffs.

For all the chants of "Dustiny," it appears that Dusty Baker's main legacy to the Cubs from the 2003 season will be the short circuiting of their much-vaunted pitchers.

We can only hope.

P.S.: For all of JM's faults as Sox manager, he clearly took much better care of the Sox pitchers than Baker did for the Cubs. Certainly, he deserves credit for that.

[Huisj]

Although it could also be argued that he was way too cautious and pulled guys to early at times when it really wasn't necessary. Pitcher abuse is one thing, but a manager could score very well on this if he always took pitchers out really early, like in the 5th inning, but that wouldn't make him a good manager.

[jabrch]

was going back to the site and looking at the 2002 Pitcher Abuse #s. Of the top 10, only 3 had decent seasons and some of it was cuz they were guys, like Prior, who were not in the bigs all season. The guys on the top of the list (Randy Johnson, Weaver, etc.) had fairly bad seasons. Colon was on the top 10 and so was Ortiz and Livan Hernandez...but other than that, it looked cool. I didn't see how those stats were calculated. Anyone know?

[MHOUSE]

I would put Marte up on the list of most abused. Manuel used him a lot and often times a few games in a row. I'm still amazed Flash was never injured with the workload he got all season.