There are brutal days ahead for the Astros in 2020, moments when Houston players will sink into chairs after games and wonder what the hell just happened, as part of their summer-long penance for the sign-stealing scandal. Some of the stuff yelled at them, either from the stands or across the field, is going to be ugly, and shouted words might turn out to be the least painful part of their experiences.
Jim Crane, the Astros' owner, is smart to hire a manager with experience, someone who can guide players through what will be the most trying challenge of their respective careers -- and Dusty Baker can put just about any crisis into its proper context.
Baker has a broad range of experience that goes way beyond baseball. As a teenager, he lived through the turbulent '60s, attended the Monterey Pop Festival in '67, and later smoked weed with Jimi Hendrix. He watched his friend and teammate Hank Aaron quietly suffer through vile racism and death threats as he neared Babe Ruth's home run record. Baker and teammate Glenn Burke are believed to be the first to share in the celebration known as the high five, and, at a time when others ostracized Burke for it, they remained friends long after Burke became one of the first players to publicly acknowledge he was gay.
Baker was manager to Barry Bonds, as Bonds evolved from MVP to one of the faces of baseball's steroid era. After the Giants lost Game 7 of the 2002 World Series, Baker moved to the Chicago Cubs, and he was there for the Wrigley Field meltdown more commonly known as the Steve Bartman game.
Through all of that, the best of Dusty Baker has remained intact: He likes people -- he cherishes people -- and in turn, others, including his players, really like him. Baker, a former colleague here at ESPN, is a nice person, and those under his charge respond to that. Even his critics in the game, those who wonder about his pitching decisions, will acknowledge that Baker's teams play hard -- they work, they consistently play with high effort.
If the Astros do that, if they remain focused through a long and tough summer, they should be really good again, with a lineup that is stacked -- from George Springer at the top to MVP candidate Alex Bregman to Yordan Alvarez -- and with Justin Verlander leading the pitching staff. Oakland is really good and the Angels and Rangers have seemingly improved, but the Astros won 107 games last year and won the AL West by 10 games -- finishing 29 games ahead of the Rangers, 35 ahead of the Angels. This week, a rival evaluator forecast some of the backlash aimed at the Astros since the commissioner's decision about the sign stealing, but punctuated his thoughts with this: "No matter what happened ... Houston is the obvious favorite."
And it's inevitable, the Astros' players will weaponize the criticism aimed at them, in the way competitors from Tiger Woods to Tom Brady have, and will emotionally invest in each other, encouraged by Baker.
The fact that Crane has hired his next manager before picking a general manager raised eyebrows with other teams. But keep in mind that the incoming GM doesn't have a lot of work to do at the big league level. The team is loaded with veterans, ready to win now, and because of this, Crane understandably focused on experience in his search for AJ Hinch's replacement, talking with John Gibbons and Buck Showalter, while also flirting with the idea of luring Craig Biggio.
Crane presumably understands that as the Astros move forward, they need a makeover within the industry, and perhaps with some of their fans turned off by the win-at-all-costs culture that drove the team to the acquisition of closer Roberto Osuna, right after Osuna finished serving a suspension under MLB's domestic violence policy, and cheating that apparently went above and beyond what was accepted among their peers. Clayton Kershaw is just the latest -- among many -- to question the Astros' choices, before and after Rob Manfred's suspension.
"It is a little bit interesting that the Astros players haven't said sorry or meant it or anything like that," Kershaw told the Los Angeles Times. "Just not a whole lot of remorse yet, which they did win a World Series, and they're not taking it back, so I don't know. Maybe there isn't. But it would be good to hear from some of those guys and just what they have to say about it and maybe mean it a little bit. It'd be good."
Kershaw, of course, was on the 2017 Dodgers who lost to the Astros in the World Series. Other players, from the Indians' Mike Clevinger to the Reds' Trevor Bauer to the Dodgers' Justin Turner and Enrique Hernandez to the Yankees' CC Sabathia, have been even more blunt in judging the Astros.
As the Houston players run the gauntlet of fan and industry opinion in 2020, Baker will be there, saying the right thing to them at the right time, presenting a broad perspective for the room. Baker's staff can focus on the coaching and the analytics, and he can be the ally the Astros will need this year, no matter what happens.
I remember walking through the Nationals' clubhouse a couple of years ago, in the midst of Bryce Harper's offensive struggles early in the year in which he became a free agent.
The pressure mounting on Harper was immense, seemingly growing with each hitless game, and with a glance, you could see him sitting in Baker's office, comfortably leaning back as they chatted.
I don't know what they discussed -- afterward, Baker just said it was a private talk -- but after years of hearing stories from players about how supportive Baker is, I'd bet Harper felt better before he left the room. There could be a persistent need for that kind of counsel in Houston in 2020.