We are now 2 1/2 years into the 4-year Dusty Baker Experiment and if there is one thing that's clear its that Baker likes to tinker with success even though the end results are almost uniformly poor.

For instance, when LaTroy Hawkins was signed in the 2003 offseason, he was one of the very best "set up men" in all of MLB. However, he had a spell as a closer that was pretty bad. You would think that Baker would have heeded the lessons of Hawkins' history and keep Hawkins where he was really good at. After all, there were other relief pitchers who could have been tried out in the closer spot. Better yet, he could have gotten rid of the overly specialized postings of relievers to spots in the first place.

However, in 2 consecutive years, Baker had Hawkins try to close out games with the result that Hawkins became the target of fan wrath and also that Hawkins eventually came to lose his confidence. Now, it appears that barring a miracle, Hawkins' MLB career is over for all practical purposes.

Another example of this is Corey Patterson. During his time in the minor leagues and in the pre-Baker Cubs, Patterson always batted #3 and was quite good at #3. However, Baker insisted on having Patterson bat leadoff and the results thus far have been very similar to what happened with Hawkins. Recently, in a misguided attempt to show that he is a team player, Patterson requested to be placed at leadoff and the results have been even worse than before. There is little evidence that Patterson will ever become proficient in that spot. Just watching Patterson play is an increasingly painful experience as it is clear that his confidence is wasting away day by day.

In both of these cases, there is a lesson that Baker seems unable or unwilling to learn: asking players to do what they cannot eventually make them unable to do what they formerly could.