Washington Nationals: Dusty Baker won’t be back in 2018

After two 95+ win seasons at the helm of the Washington Nationals, Dusty Baker was let go by the team on Friday.

Dusty Baker is paying for the sins of those before him. Since 2012 the Nats have finished either first or second in the NL East, and in four of those six seasons they’ve made it to October baseball for a few days. The club’s inability to get past the Division Series has been well documented and won’t be regurgitated here.

Instead, Baker, who is Hall of Fame worthy, is back in the unemployment line as a sacrificial lamb to the baseball gods. Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo has one year to make this work before Bryce Harper tests the free agent market, so appeasing the gods is probably a good idea.

But, as Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post points out, where are they going to find a manager with a better resume than Baker? Where will they find a rookie manager that will receive the respect of his players? Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman and Max Scherzer are just a few of the big names that a new manager will have to corral.

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Buster Olney tweeted that Bob Henley is a highly regarded managerial candidate within the Nationals organization. Henley appeared in 41 games for the Expos in 1998, the only games of his big-league career.

Boswell mentioned recently fired John Farrell as another option, though more in the realm of people that could fit the mold of the job.

After two terrible seasons in Arizona and some time after that gaining more experience, A.J. Hinch was hired by the Houston Astros in 2015 and has commanded the club to two postseason berths in three years. Could the Nats look to another former Diamondbacks manager as someone that is fairly green at the job but should be able to command the room?

Chip Hale is widely respected in Oakland for the work that he does with manager Bob Melvin and with the players. From the outside, it looked like he got a little bit of a raw deal with Arizona. In his first season in the desert they went from a 64 win club to a 79 win team. In his second season (2016), then general manager Dave Stewart signed Zack Greinke to a mega contract that heightened expectations, then traded away Ender Inciarte, one of the best outfielders in baseball, and then their other dynamic outfielder, A.J. Pollock missed all but 12 games.

Their pitching struggled that season because they didn’t have the same adept defenders in the outfield to catch fly balls. They went from ranked second in baseball in Defensive Runs Saved (37) to ranked 25th with -19. The three outfielders with the most innings in the field in 2016 were Michael Bourn, who had a DRS of 2, Brandon Drury (-9) and Yasmany Tomas (-16).

This seems more like the failings of the GM than Hale. One other factor going in Hale’s favor is that he has been in the clubhouse with current closer Nats Sean Doolittle for a couple of seasons, so there is a way for his message to break through.

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At 148-176, Hale’s managerial record may not be great, but he does have the pedigree to be an intriguing option.

Whomever it is that the Washington Nationals hire as their manager for 2018 (and beyond), they’ll have to be versatile. While the club expects to contend for a championship in 2018, that could be their last year with Bryce Harper, which could bring a completely new set of challenges for 2019.