Ned Yost's midseason grade

[Bucky Rules]

He doesn't do things like bunt a runner over (with a non-pitcher) in the 1st 3 innings (Cecil Cooper) or remove your #3 hitter in a double switch in the 4th inning (Bob Melvin) that I've seen elsewhere in the last couple of weeks.

We need to add Dusty Baker to this list when he bunted a guy to 3rd with nobody out in the 1st inning on Friday.

These are things that I've (and we all have) witnessed just in the last couple of weeks. If Yost had done any of these things he'd be absolutely roasted (and deservedly so). This list will probably grow with every series we play. Which is why I'll continue to believe that even though he gets roasted on a regular basis for in-game management decisions, he's no worse than average, and probably a lot better.

[Thurston Fluff]

Last year at the end of the season when he was arguing at calls every day is what I want to see from a manager.

 

Isn't his meltdowns last year one of the criticisms people had of him? I don't think demonstrations in the dugout makes the players any less likely to make a stupid play. It only angers them to be shown up in public. I have no doubt that Ned pulls them aside out of sight and tells them when he is unhappy with their play. I think airing out a player is best done privately. It gets the point across and doesn't needlessly embarrass the person.

[Bucky Rules]

In all, what worries me most about our pitching is how Yost will employ it. Ned is convinced that Stetter & Shouse are fine options v. RHB, which is troubling to say the least.

This is in response to TLBs comments in the midseason player grades thread, but I thought my response belonged more in a Yost thread. So, I'll hope TLB finds it here...

 

Are you troubled by what Yost said in the press conference about Shouse? Or are you troubled by how they're actually being employed. I know you cited the number of RHBs faced, but in a vacuum, that may not be the fairest way to view the situation. I don't have a great answer of what the best way to assess it is, short of looking at every individual appearance that they've made this season - which I'm too lazy to do right now (maybe at some point I will because there's not THAT many). But, I don't recall instances where they've been in critical situations against RHBs that seemed out of line to me. And I also don't recall instances where they weren't available to face LHBs in critical situations because they were used at times that they shouldn't have been. Maybe Yost has just been lucky in that regard where he hasn't been burned by it yet, so I missed where it could've potentially been a problem.

 

However, if the criterion is that they should be facing almost no RHBs, I don't think the Brewers are afforded that luxury. I don't think we can afford to have two guys in our pen be (essentially) one-batter pitchers. At least we couldn't in the first half. The addition of the ultra-innings eater (no pun intended) CC should have a HUGE (no pun intended part II) impact on the bullpen, I believe. Of course, having Mota (who can't seem to get anyone out), Gagne (who I thought might've turned the corner, and now I don't trust again), Riske and Villy (who are still more inconsistent than I would like) as the other options aren't exactly comforting. On top of that, Torres has shown a couple of chinks in the armor lately -- that hopefully is just a sign that he's not perfect, but not necessarily that the apocalypse is coming.

I guess what I'm saying here is... all things considered, I'm skeptical (without further evidence) that they've been misused to this point.

[TooLiveBrew]

Are you troubled by what Yost said in the press conference about Shouse? Or are you troubled by how they're actually being employed. I know you cited the number of RHBs faced, but in a vacuum, that may not be the fairest way to view the situation.

 

No, not the press conference comments alone (though the comments appear to indicate that there's fire with the smoke) -- the usage of the pitchers is what worries me. It's more of just a general concern, though, as opposed to, 'Yost misuses Stetter & Shouse against big RH bats.'

 

I also can't think of any 'standout' misuse moments. However, to see that both of our lefty specialists have been used just as much against righties is troubling (to me) moving forward. When you add in that the manager is on record professing his highest confidence in Shouse's ability to get RH batters out, that concerns me quite a bit. Just like with other stats, what's happened in the past has little to no bearing on what's going to happen in the future. However, also like other stats, the past results can be used to try & form a reasonable estimate on what is likely to happen.

 

So far Yost hasn't been burned by his use of the lefty specialists v. RHB -- and beyond just worrying about the results evening out a bit, I'm concerned that Ned will view 'Shouse/Stetter not having many 'bad' results v. RHB yet' as emboldening evidence that, 'Shouse/Stetter are more than just lefty specialists.' I sincerely hope the second-half distribution of AB in terms of LHB & RHB is much more heavily-skewed in favor of AB v. LHP -- not because I can forsee how those ABs will turn out, but because those matchups are not putting the player in the best position to succeed (what I would define as a manager's #1 job).

[Fatter than Joey]

Shouse is letting more inherited runners to score

[DSFastball55]

Let's see....9 games over .500 at the break....

A....for Awesome!

Bottom line is he's winning. Sure he has flaws and makes mistakes (as do other managers), but I think many of you are way too hard on him. Just my opinion of course. We could do much worse.

[logan82]

TooLiveBrew wrote:

I also can't think of any 'standout' misuse moments. However, to see that both of our lefty specialists have been used just as much against righties is troubling (to me) moving forward.

I do remember more than once Shouse being brought in for a couple innings when the game was out of reach by either team that would skew his splits. I really think that we would have to go back and look at game logs to determine misuse rather than just looking at his splits and saying that he has been miss-used. We would also have to take into consideration whether he was facing a true right hander or a switch hitter.

 

My preference to face a righty right now would be

Torres

Villanueva

Riske

Stetter

Shouse

Mota

Gagne

I have little confidence in anybody from Riske on down getting a righty out.

[Bucky Rules]

Fair enough, TLB. It's something worth keeping an eye on going forward. For now, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the vast majority of those RHBs faced were probably either switch hitters, pinch hitters replacing a lefty, a "sandwich" guy between two lefties, or non-critical situations -- or something along those lines.

[TooLiveBrew]

Those are all good points, Bucky Rules, and I think it's probably fair to give Yost the benefit of the doubt here. I also agree with logan's point that game logs, not splits, are the best way to assess usage. However, the splits, combined with Yost's professed belief that his LOOGY is successful against RHB as well, makes me worry about future usage. When I have some time, I can go through the game logs to take a better look.

[logan82]

May 29th for example Shouse came in with the score at 6-1 in the 7th inning. He faced S,R,L,R,R,R,L,S,S,S. I doubt we would see that kind of line for every game. It is the only one I looked at so far, but a couple games like that would cause a big skew in batters faced.

 

Edit: I am not trying to claim that Yost hasn't miss-used Shouse and Stetter, just that without a closer look it is just speculation in my opinion.

[Bucky Rules]

Today is a pretty good example of why I'm choosing to give Yost the benefit of the doubt, until I witness misuse. Stetter came in to face 5 batters. The splits will show that it was 4 RHBs and 1 LHB. But, they actually were 1 LHB, 3 SH (switch hitters), and a pitcher. There's not a single guy he faced that I had a problem with (as you generally prefer switch hitters to bat right handed). Yet the splits (in a vacuum) suggest he shouldn't have faced four of those five batters.

[Invader3K]

The team is 11 games over .500. I'm definitely giving Yost my support for now.

 

I can't believe there are still people that call into the local sports stations demanding that Yost be fired. At this point in the season, what would that possibly accomplish?

[BrewCrewForever]

I can't believe there are still people that call into the local sports stations demanding that Yost be fired. At this point in the season, what would that possibly accomplish?

 

Yeah, I have been very hard on Ned this season. But right now he has this team 12 games over .500 and playing great right there for the division and wild card. Even if they go on a slide it would be pointless to fire him now this season. The best day to do it was the off day after the Boston series and it didn't happen. So if will fail to make the postseason again this off season could be when Ned goes.

[logan82]

-------------------------

Moderator Note

 

Several posts in this thread have been move to a new one:

 

Yost: Rickie's "doing fine," but has "never achieved"

 

--1992casey

-------------------------