Dusty Baker was fired by the Reds today with one season and $3 million remaining on his contract, which led to speculation that he might decide to take a year off before going after a new gig in 2015.
However, in speaking to the Cincinnati media this afternoon Baker said: “I’m not retiring. I’m not taking a year off unless I’m forced to.”
Baker also confirmed Jon Heyman’s report on CBSSports.com that he balked at general manager Walt Jocketty wanting to fire hitting coach Brook Jacoby, telling C. Trent Rosencraus of the Cincinnati Enquirer:
We talked about Brook about a week ago, and they were talking about replacing him and I didn’t think that was right. All the coaches get blamed for everything. Maybe it was time to go. I did say something like that--and they did it. It wasn’t a mutual thing. There’s probably some other things in there, some things that were said or didn’t get said, stuff that was done over the years and then they said we didn’t have much motivation and spunk over the last week--but our pitching was bad and we didn’t hit.
Baker has repeatedly indicated that he thinks the front office should have added more help at the trade deadline, which probably didn’t set very well with Jocketty either.
