Washington Nationals: Top 5 Dusty Baker Quotes For April 2017
By Ricky Keeler
April 29 – Stop Changing My Lineup
Dusty Baker on possibility of Bryce Harper or Trea Turner playing CF in Adam Eaton's absence: "No. Leave my team alone." #CrustyDusty #Nats
— Eddie Matz (@eddie_matz) April 29, 2017
One of the toughest jobs that a manager has to do is setting up the lineup card every day. When you have an offense as strong as the Nats do, you can’t really go wrong with a lineup. But, keep in mind, these comments were made the day after the Adam Eaton injury.
When you look at the context of this quote, it was a good question to ask about Turner or Harper going to center field because each of them have center field experience. But, these comments are further proof that Baker is a players manager.
If you look at how Baker uses his bench, for example, he is going to give players an opportunity to play when they are on the 25-man roster. He gives you the opportunity to succeed or fail and you would think a player would have to respect that.
So far, the Washington Nationals have used Michael Taylor as the center fielder and he has succeeded as he went 5-for-11 with two RBI’s in those starts against the New York Mets.
Whatever happens with Taylor the rest of the way, he can’t say that Baker didn’t give him the opportunity.
We also saw this when Danny Espinosa was slumping last year in the postseason. Espinosa had a bad start to the NLDS but he ended up having a RBI single in game 5. It has to feel good for a player to still get the trust from his manager even when he’s slumping.
That alone shows why Baker has great value to this franchise.