In September 2010, they fired Carmen Fusco, their head of professional scouting. Fusco has since said he was made a scapegoat in the affair. The story finished in 4th place in voting for an APSE award for Explanatory Reporting. It won a regional SPJ award for Sports Reporting in the Pacific Northwest. After a 16-year career as an MLB beat writer, Baker launched his new career as a sports investigative reporter with a Dec. 8, 2013 feature story about the dysfunction permeating the upper levels of the Seattle Mariners hierarchy. Baker specifically addressed the reasons why manager Eric Wedge had walked out on the team in September, leaving a $2 million contract extension on the table. Using on-the-record quotes from Wedge, Baker painted a dysfunctional situation brought about by Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln, resident Chuck Armstrong and GM Jack Zduriencik. The story also quoted former Mariners GM assistant Tony Blengino saying he'd drawn up Zduriencik's entire resume and had helped falsely portray him as an expert in advanced statistics in order to get the job. The story was nominated for an APSE award for Explanatory Reporting. It won a regional SPJ Award for Sports Reporting in the Pacific Northwest. Baker's reporting on the proposed SoDo arena in the Stadium District of Seattle drew criticism from the SB Nation website Sonics Rising, a group of Seattle area fans lobbying for the return of NBA basketball. The site has campaigned openly for the city to support hedge fund operator Chris Hansen in efforts to build a public-subsidized arena and private sports and entertainment development in SoDo. On February 22, 2016, Baker and the Editorial Board of The Seattle Times were accused by Seattle city councilman Tim Burgess of misreporting facts to suit personal bias against the arena. The allegation came via a memo introduced by Burgess in council after a front-page story by Baker suggesting council members delayed publicizing a report by architectural firm AECOM in 2015 that concluded KeyArena could be remodeled for NBA and NHL use. Sonics Rising and two local bloggers used the occasion to again accuse Baker of biased reporting. They referenced a story of Baker's from the previous November about M.T. Phoenix, a company that offered to help finance a KeyArena renovation. The city never responded to or investigated the legitimacy of M.T. Phoenix and claimed that it legally could not entertain offers pertaining to KeyArena. The city later rebuffed a separate offer from businessman Victor Coleman, who was interested in a KeyArena renovation.