Yost Fired, Sveum named Acting Manager; Yount bench coach, Iorg 3B coach

[1992casey]

Just to note that I'm about to go back and clean up a couple long quoted messages that have appeared in the past 15 posts.

[RoseBowlMtg]

DM has mentioned he doesn't know how to fix it and Ned didn't either so he is out. DM says it is on the players. I have always said it is on the players but now at least for 12 games fans need to look at the source of the problem and not Ned when they play poorly.

 

As for Prince: How many public service events has he been to? He blew off the season tix holders. Immature or a many who is set in his unhappy ways? Arbitration will be ugly this year when he bases it on potential and last year while the Brewers could point out his defense and his attitude. Real ugly in the off season.

[1992casey]

Note the Brewerfan usage spike on the day of the Yost firing. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Today is still low because the graphic was captured at 9:51 AM. My guess is that Yuku's day begins at 3 AM CDT.

 

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a244/casey1992/boardpics/bfnet/916brewerfanuse.png

[brewmann04]

The Bottom line now is all up to the Players now, they need to put up or shut up

[Bring Back the Stein]

There's been some wringing of hands over ownership meddling, but I don't feel it. Attanasio hardly seems like a Steinbrenner and it looks like he gave Melvin and Yost plenty of rope with which to hang themselves. I don't believe good businessmen make good owners always, but Mark A., more than Yost, more than Melvin, maybe even more than Zdurecik, have been the principal drivers of the dramatic improvement of baseball in Milwaukee. Yost may have outlived his usefullness. He brought some of the boys up to speed (though they haven't shown it lately), now we need a championship skip. Problem is, we'll be going from the Ferrari back to the Camry next year.

 

By the way, I hope the crappy market won't badly diminish Mark A.'s willingness to get the right pieces for another run next year.

[patrickgpe]

i haven't contributed anything to this thread and i don't have the time to go through it all. While I support the firing, i do remember that last season Sveum did not look good filling in for Ned while he was serving his suspension. I also find it odd that Kremblas was let go one day before Ned. It would appear to me that they didn't want a controversy on who should be the interim manager. I would of preferred Frank but thats just me.

[tigerbrew]

The firing of Yost is long overdue. Glad it finally happen.

[SeriesFinale]

I actually don't mind "owner meddling" (and God forbid they'd want some say in their investment) as long as the payoff is more along the lines of a Steinbrenner or a Jerry Jones and not a Dan Snyder or a late-era Al Davis.

 

(I also think it's kind of strange that people are mentioning an eventual move in this thread, but that's another story)

 

I agree with a previous poster that the timing of this move probably doesn't go over very well with the "managing fraternity" as it were, but 1) Steinbrenner pulled stuff like that for years and never had a problem getting "top name" guys, which leads to 2) when have the Brew Crew ever gotten "top name" games anyway?

[sheethead]

Backupcatchers wrote:

---

No manager is so horrible that a team in the position they were in has an excuse to play that uninspired of baseball....

I felt it was the weight of so many years of bad baseball taking it's toll.

Personally, I think Ned's hypertensive and condescending personality, combined with his ultra-poor game management, contributed to the Brewers collapse more than prior years' results.

[craigharmann]

Any word on Ned's presser?

[Patrick425]

Any word on Ned's presser?

Have been listening to 620. I would assume they would cut to it...but nothing yet.

[Patrick425]

I guess it was a conference call and not a press conference. It's on WTMJ's web site. Have not listened to it yet.

[1992casey]

Direct Audio Link: Yost Press Conference

[Schlitz001]

I was thinking the very same thing. Not saying Fielder was driving this or anything, but I'm guessing he was one of the guys Hardy may have been talking about. A good guess, in my opinion.

Has Prince made any statements about Yost getting fired? I used to think he was the "clubhouse leader", but I rarely hear anything from him. While I don't think that Prince has anything to do with Yost getting fired, it would still be interesting to get his take on it. And from Hardy's comments it sounds like more than a few players didn't get along with Yost. If it took Hardy 3 years to "warm up" to Yost, after Yost was the one who insited on playing a struggling Hardy, that paints a picture of a guy who's hard to get along with.

[Grateful cub]

One major difference that blows your baseless theory out of the water vs. my baseless theory, and that is Braun's public commenst in the wake of Ned's firing. I don't discount Braun's influence over the organization...he's the man and everyone knows it. Yet, he has publicly stepped up and taken responsibility on the part of himeslef and the rest of the players.

Public comments are all those are--just like you said. What do you expect players to say publicly? It's what they say to people when there ISN'T a mic in front of their face that carries a lot more weight. If you want to play detective, I would try to get more evidence than the quotes you find in the paper.

[endaround]

I was thinking the very same thing. Not saying Fielder was driving this or anything, but I'm guessing he was one of the guys Hardy may have been talking about. A good guess, in my opinion.

Has Prince made any statements about Yost getting fired? I used to think he was the "clubhouse leader", but I rarely hear anything from him. While I don't think that Prince has anything to do with Yost getting fired, it would still be interesting to get his take on it. And from Hardy's comments it sounds like more than a few players didn't get along with Yost. If it took Hardy 3 years to "warm up" to Yost, after Yost was the one who insited on playing a struggling Hardy, that paints a picture of a guy who's hard to get along with.

 

I don't want to off on a tangent here, but Hardy was pretty much benched by the time he got hurt and was done for the season. His playing time was evaporating quickly with many here calling for him either to be played or sent down. Its one of those myths the sprung up that Yost was really patient with him when that patience really only lasted a month.

[DougJones43]

I guess it was a conference call and not a press conference. It's on WTMJ's web site. Have not listened to it yet.

Listening to it now. Ned seems like a very good man. I do believe that he wanted nothing more than for the Brewers to succeed. Believe it or not, I have a lot of respect for Ned Yost as a person. I just don't think he had the necessary skills to be a good, or even adequate, Major League baseball manager.

[shtiny]

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.

 

 

(added some vertical spacing --1992)

[naivin]

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

If you can illustrate to me how this had any affect on wins and losses, I'll consider it.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

I agree with a number of the rips on Yost, and at some point he deserved to be fired. Clearly it was going to happen if they did not make the playoffs. Whether this works or not, I have no idea. Two weeks is not much of a test period so we'll see what happens...it probably couldn't hurt. I do want to give the other side to some of the Yost rips.

 

Hall - Remember they did make a bold move with Branyan, but he got hurt. That limited their options. They tried Counsell too, but all heck broke out on the board when he was in. At some point there weren't a great deal of options.

 

Durham/Weeks - They were platooning them, but Durham was hurt for a short period and they were warned by Bochy not to play him every day.

 

Kendall/Rivera - Totally agree that Rivera should have gotten 10-12 extra starts this year, but now what do you do? It's a little late to be trotting Mike out there. The window to save Kendall for September is closed...he should start each game until year end, although a pinch hitter in key late game situations makes sense.

 

Bullpen - Agree there is no excuse for the Shouse incident the other day...that was a clear Yosting, but at times he's had no other choice than Gagne, Riske or Mota...that's like asking which gun you want to use to shoot yourself with. I would like to see Torres out there earlier in the game if the situation warrants, regardless of this silly save situation thing...but every manager does that.

 

By and large it is tough to completely defend Ned...but I just can't be that one sided on the guy. He dug his own grave at times, but his players and the hand he was dealt also played a role.

[snyttri]

(

I also think it's kind of strange that people are mentioning an eventual move in this thread, but that's another story)

That was because the relevance of the owner being from California was brought up. Milwaukee would have to fall to the bottom in attendance after problems with other franchises have been resolved.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

Someone please tell me what city our owner could move us too that would have north of 2mm in attendance in a bad year and over 3mm in a good year? That city would also need to have a superior facility to ours. Also, what would the Brewers do with their share of the stadium debt they've incurred? Would a new city pick up the tab in this economy?

 

The Brewers aren't going anywhere...with or without Mark.

[snyttri]

Someone please tell me what city our owner could move us too that would have north of 2mm in attendance in a bad year and over 3mm in a good year? That city would also need to have a superior facility to ours. Also, what would the Brewers do with their share of the stadium debt they've incurred? Would a new city pick up the tab in this economy?

 

The Brewers aren't going anywhere...with or without Mark.

Moving is only a long term issue. Unfortunately, 2M is not a bad year in attendance for Milwaukee. Miller Park will not always be relatively new. The economy will different than it is now and new stadiums will be built. Many teams have moved before and it could happen to baseball's smallest market again, particularly if there isn't local ownership to fight for Milwaukee.

 

http://www.baseball-refer...om/teams/MIL/attend.shtml

http://www.baseball-refer...om/teams/ATL/attend.shtml

[bucks2281]

I was browsing through the posts from late 2007, and I stumbled across this gem:

 

http://forum.brewerfan.net/viewtopic.php?t=8606

 

It's the "Should Ned Stay or Go" poll from August-October 2007. Very interesting reading, considering the current state of affairs.

[valpocrewsader]

Very happy Ned's gone. And the guy who hit the game-winning home run in 1987 to give us our twelfth win in a row just took over as manager with twelve games left to go? This can't not work. Let the streak begin tonight....