Life long Dolphins and Buckeye fan, so i was really interested in reading this thread to see what the opinions about Baker are. Figured I would share my two cents about Baker and provide some more insight.
Baker was a standout on both sides of the ball in high school and there was some debate about whether he would be a RB, LB, or Safety. OSU was deep at RB at the time with future high round draft picks (Zeke Elliott and Curtis Samuel) and Baker became a little too big for safety. Luckily, OSU's defense has implemented a hybrid LB aka Walkout LB for the past few years. This position is crucial to defend spread offenses and requires a player who is athletic enough to covers TE, slots, RB while still defending the run. Darren Lee (former 1st round pick of the Jets) is the "gold standard" for the Hybrid LB at OSU and he was a vital part of the reason why OSU won the national championship in 2014 and only lost one game on 2015. Baker was seen as the logical replacement for Lee heading into the 2016 season mainly due to highlight reel interception during the spring game. But, he was beaten out by Chris Worely (recently signed as a UDFA by the Bengals) mainly due to seniority and the fact the Worley was close to beating out Lee prior to the 2014 season. Baker did not spend much time on the bench because one of their Strong Side LB Dante Booker suffered a knee injury and OSU decided to put their three best LB on the field. Baker to advantage of his opportunity, notching big INT's against Oklahoma and That Team Up North and making other big plays throughout the season. Many OSU fans expected Baker to build on his 2016 season and follow in the footsteps of Darren Lee and be a 1st round draft pick.
Baker was unable to match his production/ performance in 2017 and his flaws have been widely discussed in the previous posts. I will say that Baker was one of the most frustrating Buckeyes to watch, but there are some factors that contributed to his disappoint performance. By far, the biggest factor was changes within the defensive coaching staff. Luke Fickell, co - DC and LB coach, left OSU to become the head coach at the University of Cincinnati. Fickell was replaced by Bill Davis, longtime NFL coach with experience coaching linebackers and calling defenses. He seemed like a logical replacement, but it did not work our for whatever reason and LB play was a season long Achilles heel. If you need visual evidence, go watch the games versus Oklahoma or Iowa and you will see the LB's out of position and unaware of what was going on. Also, Davis struggled to find a good combination of LB's to put on the field. OSU started Baker at Hybrid LB, Worley at Mike, and Booker at SAM. Worley was always undersized for a Mike and Booker is a perfect example of looking like Tarzan, but playing like Jane. All three of the LB's missed time due to injuries and OSU somewhat settled on starting lineup of Baker, Tuf Borland (Great name for a LB, no relation to former LB Chris Borland), and Worley. Booker did not play the last few games and they added in another LB, Malik Harrison, to the rotation. The LB play got better and Baker had his best game of the season in the Big Ten Championship game against Wisconsin. Also, there were rumors and scuttlebutt that Baker had his eye's on the NFL and was playing not to get hurt, instead of giving his all. Not sure how much I believe those rumors, but it could have impacted his play.
Baker has his flaws, but he has a very specific skill set that could be valuable to our D. I hope this insight was helpful and my glasses did not have to much of a scarlet tint to them.