Ned Yost… Too Little… Too Late
There is only one reason, I disagree with the Yost firing…. it didn’t happen soon enough. Ned should have been let go after the September swoon of 2007. He showed enough of his incompetence during that year and nothing has changed. He is a poor in-game manager, acts too much like a bench coach in his coddling of certain players, and never installed a winning attitude against tough opponents like BOS or PHI or NYM.
Here are some of his major issues:
Coddling of players: Why is Billy Hall playing on a regular basis? IMHO, Bill Hall needs to not play again the rest of the year. It isn’t like he can actually hit left handed pitching. Right now he is hitting .313/.378/.542 against lefties… pretty good on the surface… but if you remove the pathetic left handed pitching that Pittsburgh throws out (Gorzelanny, Duke, Maholm, Burnett) and he is hitting .254/.323/.466 against the rest of the left hander’s in the league. Those are not numbers that scream out BILL HALL NEEDS to play against lefties… those are numbers that say BILL HALL should be in AAA.
Not defending other players: When Carlos Villanueva got out of a huge jam in a big game against St. Louis in late August, he showed some on-field emotion. This led to a mini-argument between Pujols and Villanueva. Instead of protecting his pitcher, he scolded him publicly and took Pujols side that Villanueva shouldn’t have “shown up” the Cards in that situation.
Creating clubhouse rifts [not in the clubhouse]: Yost had a well-documented exchange last year in the dugout with Johnny Estrada. This year, Manny Parra and Prince Fielder started a fight in the dugout. Outside of Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds, can you remember a time when this happened for all to see, much less twice by the same manager? Yost’s disrespect of the media after the game was laughable, as he gave a ridiculous quote: “It’s a little bit rude when your neighbors are fighting next door for you to go knock on the door and ask what happened.” Really? The beat reporter for the Brewers doesn’t have the right to ask what happened in the dugout during a game?
Setting up a pitching rotation: Yost set up his September pitching rotation, by giving Sabathia 3 extra days of rest in August. His reason was to have Sabathia pitch twice against the Cubs. By doing this, Sabathia missed a potential extra start during the season. In addition, he missed both the Mets and Phils series… which IMHO were WAY more important than the Cubs Series. The goal is to make the post-season. His handling of Dave Bush is also beyond explanation. Admittedly, Bush had a very rough start to the season. He was 1-5 with a 6.56 ERA through May 22. But then, Mike Maddux (a/k/a GOD) changed his mechanics and Bush went 4-3 with a 2.70 ERA in his next 9 starts. So, what does Yost do? He puts Bush in a Home/Road Platoon with journeyman Seth McClung, so Bush would only start home games, and McClung only road games. In Bush’s two starts prior to the decision he gave up 1 run in 16 innings… Obvious solution, would be to give Bush 16 days off before his next start? So, of course Bush struggles in his next 2 starts before going 4-0 with a 2.12 ERA in August.
In Game decisions: Jason Kendall is an upgrade over Johnny Estrada. I get that. It doesn’t mean that Kendall has to start EVERY game, including both halves of the doubleheader on Sunday. Kendall has started 139 out of 150 games. It isn’t like they don’t have a back up catcher. Rivera is hitting .311/.382/.443 in very limited time, which is pretty good for a defensive catcher. I also, understand that it is a tough decision to pinch hit for your catcher with only one backup, but with September call ups, the Brewers have 4 catchers on the roster, and Kendall is still hitting in the late innings against tough Right handed pitchers like Brad Lidge.
I am not going to discuss his nonexistent bullpen acumen. Yost has been stuck with an awful relief corps during his tenure in Milwaukee, so it is easy to mismanage it. Riske should have been a good signing, but he has turned into a disaster. Gagne, Mota, Torres have had their moments, but none are dominant relievers that can be counted on for the long term. Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus wrote a terrific article about his use of Brian Shouse on Sunday, which unfortunately is not an isolated incident.
As an organization, the priorities don’t align with a winning organization. Just this year they have focused way too much of their efforts on non-material things. Here are some examples.
Internet Vote push for Braun and Hart for AS Team
Pushing back a Sheets start so he could start the AS Game
And most relevant: Focusing efforts on reversing a scorer’s call for Sabathia no-hitter
Yost was more upset about the No-Hitter denied to CC then he was about anything else in his six years as manager….. thoughts?
September 16th, 2008 at 11:46 am
What… like I’m supposed to add to that?
To me, the timing is just silly. Sure… the Devils won the Cup a few years back when they fired their coach like a week before the playoffs. Then they tried it again last year… not so successful. To me, it comes down to your point: If he was so bad that he had to be fired in mid-September, then he was bad enough to be fired earlier… to give the new guy a shot to accomplish something. Seems like a real panic move for a team that is struggling mightily lately…. too little, too late indeed.
In 1988, the Red Sox fired John McNamera mid-season and Joe Morgan led them on the Morgan Miracle tour… they won like 25 straight home games… played great… made the playoffs… and then were summarily dismissed in the first round by the A’s - but I digress. Replacing a manager from the offseason up to end of July (early August if you really want to push it)? Fine… time for him to have an impact (think Jerry Manuel for Willie Randolph). But is it realisitc to expect Dale Sveum to right the ship in two weeks?
I dunno… maybe this will be a jolt to the Brew Crew and they’ll respond… we’ll see.
Then again, maybe it’s just the area. The Astros were 30-10 since August 1, inexplicably putting themselves within a couple games of the wild card… until they came up and played their “home” series against the Cubs in Milwaukee. The “home” teams in Milwaukee don’t seem to fare to well as wild card contenders, do they?