Lou Piniella was the last manager hired by Cincy with no ties to the organization. Every manager since has either come from the minors, the coaching staff or from a scouting/advisory role. Piniella, of course, led the Reds to a World Series championship in his first season at the helm in 1990. Let's hope fans don't expect a repeat performance from Baker this year – or anytime soon. Homer Bailey, Joey Votto, and Jay Bruce may give Cincinnati optimism for the future, but there is no reason to think that Baker is going to be a difference maker.

- Rich Lederer, 10/18, 8:15 AM PT

The most similar pitches to Rivera’s cutter are the fastballs of Jared Burton and Juan Salas. I had never heard of Burton or Salas, but both guys throw a fastball that is relatively similar to Rivera’s cutter and both pitchers have reverse splits. Other pitchers with similar pitches to Rivera's cutter, such as Jason Isringhausen and Micah Owings, don’t show a reverse split, but they don’t throw their “reverse” pitch nearly as often as Rivera, Burton or Salas, which I think is key to having a reverse split.

I think the rest of my afternoon is spoken for with this toy (Jamie Moyer’s fastball is most similar to Cole Hamel’s changeup), so if there are any requests for similar pitches, I’d be happy to look at them.

After a couple rounds of corrections to my pitch-identifying algorithm, I’m pretty confident in the process, but there are definitely pitch types that it doesn’t identify very well, particularly splitters. Correctly identifying pitches is important for my analysis, so I’d love any suggestions/advice people have about which pitchers throw splitters.

- Joe P. Sheehan 10/18, 1:23 PM ET