There are not many open spots right now managers in MLB at the moment. Most vacant managerial openings have been filled with exception of the new york yankees, who surprisingly let go of Joe Girardi after their trip to the ALCS in 2017. Right now a big question remains on the minds of many which is the future of Dusty Baker.

Baker was fired by the Washington Nationals right after falling to the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS, which is still under a lot of controversy. The veteran manager is a man with a complicated reputation. While he boasts much regular season success on his managerial resume, he is often known for his teams falling apart in the postseason as well as overworking his starting pitchers.

Those two negatives often overshadow the fact that he has a career .540 winning percentage in the regular season and often liked by his team players. Will Dusty get another managerial chance soon?

Latest firing

The Washington Nationals brought Dusty in before the 2016 season after being fired by the Reds back in 2013. Baker entering 2016 had not managed in two years and there was a lot of head-scratching when the Nationals hired him. Regardless both 2016 and 2017 saw division titles in Washington D.C with an overall record of 192-132. However, both years saw game five losses at home in the NLDS. The Nationals still have yet to win a playoff series going back to their move to D.C.

After losing 9-8 in game five to the Cubs he was fired immediately after.

There were a lot of unhappy reactions to the firing considering his staff won 97 games in 2017 and much of the team's failures in the deciding game were strictly on the players and bad breaks in the game, not on Baker. According to Sports Illustrated's Chris Chavez and FanRag's Jon Heyman, there were a number of unhappy Nationals players regarding Baker's dismissal.

USA Today quoted Baker saying, "I really thought this was my best year. We won at least 95 games each year and won the division back-to-back years but they said they wanted to go a different direction. It's hard to understand." Both USA Today and deadspin.com have openly criticized the Nationals not only firing Baker but by not doing it face-to-face.

Reputation

Dusty Baker's reputation for being a "choker" tends to bring skepticism to his managerial abilities. Over the past two decades, Baker has managed the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, and Nationals. He came close to winning the World Series in 2002 with the Giants before falling late in game six and losing game seven. The Reds under Baker saw two NLDS losses and a Wild Card game loss in his six years there. Probably his most infamous postseason collapse was in 2003 with the Cubs as his team blew a 3-1 lead in the NLCS, including losing game six just five outs away from the World Series. Baker has never won a World Series overall and has a sub-.500 postseason record.

Another stain on his resume, which greatly involves his Cubs tenure, was his managing of starting pitchers. He is often blamed for the downfall of young stud pitcher Mark Prior. Prior to 2003 averaged 113.4 pitches per start during the regular season and also left him to go well over 100 pitches all three postseason starts that year. After that year Prior was always injured and never reached his potential. How much of that is actually Baker's fault is up for debate, but he still carries that burden on him in the eyes of many.

Future

Right now it seems incredibly unlikely Baker will get a managerial job in 2018. There have been a few names linked to the New York Yankees, but Baker has yet to be mentioned in those talks.

It seems odd that a manager with 1,863 wins in his career may be struggling to find work in the future, but his reputations of negatives just seem to out-weight the goods.

Will he manage ever again? It is possible. Will he likely stay in baseball in some form in 2018? Also very possible. Could he just retire? Also, possible. The path that Dusty will head on right now is very uncertain and who knows when he will choose to enter the next chapter of his life.
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