Dusty's Youth Problem

No, this is not a Michael Jackson joke.

When Dusty Baker came to Chicago, he sat in his office with reporters for an interview. In the background, his office radio played a song. I don’t recall the exact title, but I believe the lyrics were something like, "Who's got your cheese?"

The implication was that Dusty Baker was the man to watch out for his players' cheese. And by that I mean their incomes. How does a manager do that? By making sure that players have every incentive to achieve their bonuses. Supposedly, that’s the real reason players love to play for Baker – he makes them more money.

Who am I to argue? Sounds good to me. But there is one downside to this type of managing. It effectively prevents such a manager from playing younger players. Pre-free agent / arbitration eligible players generally have very few bonus clauses in their contracts. For example: LaTroy Hawkins has a clause in his contract that paid him $50,000 if he finished 20 to 25 games and $250,000 if he finished 60 games.

A manager who has LaTroy’s cheese isn't going to use Ryan Dempster as a closer. He’s going to give LaTroy every possible chance to succeed.

When you realize this, you then see why Todd Hollandsworth got playing time ahead of Jason DuBois. It's not that Dusty hates using young players, it's that his tie to his players is through their wallets and the young guys don’t have that tie.

What's the answer? Well, two possibilities. One would be for the GM to put his foot down and tell the manager who to play. This also gives the manager cover ("Blame Hendry that you didn't earn your incentives."). The other would be to minimize the number of manager-influenced incentives. That means more Cy Young / All Star / MVP bonuses and fewer plate appearance / games played incentives.

This strategy has worked well for Dusty for over 10 years. He won't change. It's up to Jim Hendry to work within the strategy of the man he hired.