Dusty Baker
Dusty Baker
Johnnie B. "Dusty" Baker, Jr.is an American Major League Baseball manager and former player. He is currently the manager for the Washington Nationals. He enjoyed a 19-year career as a hard-hitting outfielder, primarily with the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. He helped the Dodgers to pennants in 1977 and 1978 and to the championship in 1981. He then enjoyed a 20-year career as a manager with the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, and now Washington Nationals. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth15 June 1949
CityRiverside, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Certain kids stick out, ... And when I saw Adam in spring training, I liked his attitude, his work ethic. He busts his butt.
He was more aggressive, he was in the strike zone. He worked quickly, which allowed the players to stay alert on defense. His body language and demeanor was a lot better, which he promised me it would be after our discussion. You like to see a young man do what he says, because talk is cheap. He said what he is going to do and he did it.
I try to have businesslike camps all the time with mixing in some fun in there with a little laughter in the workplace at the same time.
I know exactly where he's coming from. I continue to work on it myself.
It's still a work in progress a little bit.
He's been working with Tony Gwynn in the winter and you can't find a better guy than that to work with. He works hard, he appears to be an outstanding teammate. I think he'll be an excellent catch for us.
I'm sure something will work out for him. I certainly don't think he's through. Injuries have hurt him the last couple of years. I'm hoping he gets a job.
You don't want to do all this hard work all through Spring Training and during the season and then come out here with nothing to be proud of.
The things I want to see out of him is baseball experience and work on fundamental instinctive stuff -- running the bases, hitting the cutoff man, knowing when to run. I've heard that when he gets thrown out, he stops running. When you get thrown out, you need to be more daring.
He's poised. If he's going to play short, he has to work on getting his throw truer. Right now, it runs into the runner.
You've got guys studying video and there's some things that you see, some things that you have to put into play, ... Of all the things that I see, they're beating him with the fastball, which is a no-no. And sometimes he doesn't track the ball. Those are some of the things he has to work on.
He looks pretty good. He says he doesn't feel anything but we still have to be cautious. If he doesn't get any headaches or dizziness, he might be ready on Wednesday. Hopefully the new helmet worked and he doesn't have any repercussions and he's OK.
You've got to admire him for not quitting. When you're hungry, you can find a way to do things. He was going to have to go to work or play ball.
A lot of it depends on the strength of your starting pitching. If your starting pitching is good, you won't need 12 too much. Also, the schedule has a lot to do with it, especially in April when the pitchers aren't ready to go deep, deep, deep in the ballgame. You don't even know at that time if you'll need five starters. You might only need four. You hate to lose that guy's endurance by not pitching. It'll work itself out by the time we get ready to leave.