Reds Extend Baker, Bailey/Wood/Leake Request to be Traded

It's rumored that Dusty Baker is going to sign a 3 year extension with the Cincinnati Reds.  The Reds have made the move from young team to contender and Baker has been at the helm so you can't fault the Reds for keeping him, but it's never too late to give him a jab about abusing pitchers, even if it's not (totally) true.

Shawn Estes, Kirk Rueter, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood,  Edinson Volquez, and Aaron Harang have all struggled and/or been hurt after been seemingly/questionably overused by Baker.  This year Reds made the playoffs in large part because their rotation.  The Reds have always mashed in their bandbox, this year the rotation was good enough to win the division.  In 2009 the Reds had a rotation FIP of 4.91 and this year its 4.27.  While the "Dusty Baker Effect" (if there is such a thing) won't take place this year (except for already injured Mike Leake) it will be interesting to see how the Reds young rotation holds up in 2011 hopefully with a new addition named Aroldis Chapman so we can see how his 105+ MPH heat holds up over 6+ innings.

A big thing to remember is that a lot of pitchers eventually get hurt no matter how cautious you are with them(see Strasburg, Stephen), and like I mentioned, the Reds have a handful of young pitchers.  If they were pitching for any team it's likely that one or more of Cueto, Travis Wood, Aroldis Chapman, Mike Leake, and Homer Bailey would find themselves on the DL at some point so we can't go pointing fingers at Dusty if/when that happens.  What will likely happen then is some regression, and an injury or two that will likely have nothing to do with Dusty.  Sometimes pitchers that throw 100+ MPH just don't stay healthy (see Strasburg, Stephen). With that said though, it'll be really hard not to blame Dusty if another young pitcher pitching in the postseason under Dusty Baker named Wood gets hurt.