Designated Yost Thread... Latest: No accountability and lack of urgency (part 5)

[afeter]

In reference to Yost & tonight's game/outcomes....

TooLive, I completely agree with your post. Yost made huge fundamental managerial errors and oversights tonight. In spite of which the brewers were still able to nab one of their best wins this season.

 

Imagine this fanboard, or even JS if any of these senarios play out last night.

 

1. Mota implodes. His command wasn't there. He hadn't pitched in a long time. He got lucky. How could Yost possibly justify pitching him in this game. Myself, like i am sure many others on this board, thought he was gone when soup returns. Now i don't know. If we were going to use him in a game like last night, wouldn't it have been benefical to let him pitch with one of the big leads we had over the weekend?

 

2. Pujos beats us. How can you pitch to this guy with the game on the line. I understand the next match up with ankiel wasn't favorable either, but no way would i let Albert beat me in the ninth.

 

3. Torres gives up two runs in the 10th. Imagine the difficutly of explaining the decision to let him hit to the media. Although yost wouldn't, (he'd come off with some snide dismissive remark). The guy hadn't hit in 3 years and he walks him up there with a runner is scoring position.

 

I didn't list the lack of defensive substitution and use of gagne, both of which are very questionable of debatable decisions.

 

I guess this goes to show how minimal an affect a manager has when players perform.

 

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Moderator Note

 

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

 

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

 

--1992casey

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[Bucky Rules]

3. Torres gives up two runs in the 10th. Imagine the difficutly of explaining the decision to let him hit to the media.

The explanation would be easy in my mind. "We had a one run lead. I wanted my best pitcher out there to close out the game." I don't have much problem with that.

 

It's not like Torres got hit hard when he blew the save in the 9th. Molina is the only guy that hurt him. The other two "hits" were infield *e-hem* "singles".

 

I guess this goes to show how minimal an affect a manager has when players perform.

The same goes when they don't perform. The manager, in general, has very little impact on the outcome of an individual game.

[lcbj68c]

I have to agree with John Briggs12. Am I the only one tired of hearing, "I'm happy with the trade. I just want to help my team win. I just want to get to the post-season and win a championship." The same old standard responses are quite melodramatic and boring. Not every response has to be rose-colored and so plain jane, so to speak. Most of the time, these reporters think they know the answer before they ask them, so it's great that Ned gives them an atypical response.

[KCBrewerfan34]

I'm not a Yost guy but I will say one thing, it took an INCREDIBLE amount of guts to put Gagne and Mota in there in a game of that magnitude. Getting the 1st game of this series was fricking HUGE!!!!

[Patrick425]

With all due respect to Gene Mueller who's a nice enough fella, his questions are just cliches and out of date. "Buyers rather than sellers"?

Mueller actually did not use those words. That was me paraphrasing. I'm not a big Gene Mueller fan, but Mueller was just bascially asking if it felt "refreshing" for a change to be in a pennant race and be able to go get guys to help accomplish that goal. That's all, and then Yost has to come back and crique Muller's use of the word "refreshing".

My point was that this was not a hard hitting interview. This was a friendly cream-puff questions type of interview (he's a guest every Tuesday), but Yost still manages to come off as defensive. It made me squirm in my seat listening to it.

[afeter]

I'm not a Yost guy but I will say one thing, it took an INCREDIBLE amount of guts to put Gagne and Mota in there in a game of that magnitude. Getting the 1st game of this series was fricking HUGE!!!!

--guts is one way to describe it

[Thurston Fluff]

considering the makeup of the pen Mota in the 6th isn't that bad a place for him. The team has time to comeback if he implodes and they have to use him sometime when a game is not completely out of reach. Using Mota earlier in games now means the other relievers are still fresh in the dog days of August. Ned learned last year that using only the most productive relievers too often means they don't do as well late in the year. Mota can be a bridge to the late season by taking some middle innings now. As long as he isn't pitching late in close games I'm ok with him this month. At this point of the year Ned can't be afraid to use the all players he has. If he is then they shouldn't be on the team anymore.

[fondybrewfan]

TooLive, I completely agree with your post. Yost made huge fundamental managerial errors and oversights tonight. In spite of which the brewers were still able to nab one of their best wins this season.

I am confused. Are we now critizing Yost on hypothetical conditions? I fail to see any errors he made last night. So what if he pinch hits for Torres and we only end up scoring 1 run (this is a purely hypothetical exercise isn't it) and Villy comes in and promptly gives up a 2 run dinger. That fact is that every decision Yost made yesterday worked and whats better is that we won.

 

How about the decisions Ned made to start Bill Hall against the lefty or keep Rickie in the lineup, or pitch McClung instead of Bush. Those worked out perfectly but instead we are blaming the guy for stuff that never even happened.

 

We are 13 games over .500 and just rolling right now, I am just going to enjoy the ride, because, while Ned isn't the ideal in-game manager, he certainly has the team playing very well right now.

(pared back long nested quote --1992)

[Jay Zahn]

Other moves that might be deemed questionable were playing Bill Hall over Branyan, throwing Gagne in the 7th, not pinch hitting Branyan for Hall in the 10th...

Given that Branyan had already hit for McClung in the 6th, batting again in the 10th would have been really dumb by Yost...

 

(edit: nested quote --1992)

[rluzinski]

I bet my life savings on 00 and won, so it was a good decision.

 

Do you make life decisions based that kind of analysis?

[TooLiveBrew]

Yeah... why? Is that bad?

 

 

I'm not a Yost guy but I will say one thing, it took an INCREDIBLE amount of guts to put Gagne and Mota in there in a game of that magnitude.

 

Guts... only one letter removed from "Nuts", which is exactly what Ned was to throw Mota in that situation. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[endaround]

I can't understand how anyone can defend Torres hitting in the 10th with one out man on 2B and only a one run lead. Add to it three players on the bench, 4 pitchers in the pen and that Torres was already pitching his 3rd day in a row so extending him was questionable even if he wasn't batting.

[tristarscoop]

I can't even begin to put into words how awful Ned's strategy was tonight. I'm glad the Crew won, but I'm worried that Mota is now going to be used in high-leverage situations because, 'He's pitching good. He's been pitching good.' I'm worried about Gagne too, but to a lesser extent because, while Mota got quite lucky tonight (his command looked horrible), Gagne actually looked pretty darn good. I don't know what to make of all of this, but I'm sure it's probably A-Rod's fault somehow.

 

I said basically the same thing in the IGT last night and got a lot of 'tude for it. I said I *almost* wanted Mota to do bad because I was afraid a good outing would mean he would stick around longer and I got mocked for not wanting the team to win and for doubting Mota.

 

It's like a totally different feel to this thread.

 

...

I still think that if Torres had gotten a hit last night, it would have been the harbinger of the apocalypse. By far the strangest game I'd ever seen.

[naivin]

I am confused. Are we now critizing Yost on hypothetical conditions?

You make it sound as if that is something new...Where you been?

[Invader3K]

I am not a huge Yost fan. If he had been fired after the Boston sweep, I wouldn't have shed any tears. That said, I just wish more people around here could at least give the guy some modicum of credit. The Brewers, if I'm not mistaken, have the best record in baseball since some point in mid-May. While I think the majority of that is due to how the players are performing, I think you at least have to tip your cap to Yost for how he has the team playing. I am really enjoying this team right now, and I'm more concerned with how many wins Yost can get us than how he answers some cliche questions on the one radio station that seems to be begrudingly giving the Brewers more coverage now that they're winning, ironically.

[naivin]

I can't understand how anyone can defend Torres hitting in the 10th with one out man on 2B and only a one run lead.

I don't know if its a defense necessarily, but I do have a theory on it given the situation...First of all from a purely between the lines perspective, it seemed a little odd, but then again the decision was essentially between Torres with a 1 or more run lead vs. Villanueva with a 1 or more run lead, so from that perspective I do think Torres is probably the correct call, third day in a row or not.

 

As far as Torres hitting however, I think Ned may have also been looking big picture as he often does, and perhaps saw an opportunity to simultaneously provide a vote of confidence to two guys who may have needed it, and who will be absolutely crtitical to the Brewers success this year. Sending the message to Torres that I am letting you hit because I know you will get me three outs in the bottom half no matter what, and at the same time sending the message to Rickie that if Torres doesn't get the run in, I have faith that you will.

 

Do I know that's what went on? Not at all. Do I believe it may have played a role in the decision? I sure do.

[fondybrewfan]

We had also burned through 4 pitchers already (Including Torres) and we don't have another off day for a long time yet. This might be another explanation for his reasoning. I like the decision because I would much rather have Torres out their for a 2nd inning than have Villy out there. If we wouldn't have scored another run Villy, who has given up 15 homers in only 77 innings, would have made me much more nervous.

 

It isn't like their was a guarantee that whoever would have hit for Torres would have gotten a hit anyways. But were probably arguing way to much about this since we did actually win

[logan82]

afeter wrote:

1. Mota implodes.

2. Pujos beats us

3. Torres gives up two runs in the 10th.

I would agree that pitching Mota in a close game is just crazy. I don't agree that you should IBB anybody. Guys get themselves out more than half the time at worst. If Pujols beats us, he beats us. There is a greater than half chance he makes an out. There is no reason to walk the guy.(I also thought it was really stupid earlier in the year when Fielder was walked 4 times in one game by LaRussa, they were unintentional-intentional) I would rather have had Torres in there in the 10th so I have no problem with him hitting. He can go multiple innings and won't be used tomorrow after pitching one inning anyway.

[bigredrobbo]

I am not a huge Yost fan. If he had been fired after the Boston sweep, I wouldn't have shed any tears. That said, I just wish more people around here could at least give the guy some modicum of credit. The Brewers, if I'm not mistaken, have the best record in baseball since some point in mid-May. While I think the majority of that is due to how the players are performing, I think you at least have to tip your cap to Yost for how he has the team playing. I am really enjoying this team right now, and I'm more concerned with how many wins Yost can get us than how he answers some cliche questions on the one radio station that seems to be begrudingly giving the Brewers more coverage now that they're winning, ironically.

Good post.

Ironically, that "some point in May" is pretty much right after the Boston series that Yost was lucky to survive, per some on this board. Hypothetically, had Simmons, Kremblas or some other ABY taken over, by now many would be crediting them with turning the team around!

 

Since that managerial change obviously didn't happen, who gets the credit? Yost? The players? Don't worry, it's rhetorical - I know already what the answer is...

[TooLiveBrew]

Yes, both.

[Bring Back the Stein]

"The world is ever changing. Why should I be afraid to change my word?" - Beria.

 

I thought the fatwa against Ned Yost would have been removed by now, with the second-best record in the National League and a gutsy job of managing last night. I for one am prepared to give it up. But it seems that the cadres here feel otherwise. The collective wisdom of baseball savants, from Vin Scully to Don Sutton, from Mark Grace to Steve Phillips, whether or not you respect or like them, is that Yost is meticulous and calculating. I've read it here before and I'm won by the argument, where I admittedly talked trash about Yost before, but I think one day soon, when he's managing the Braves, we're going to miss him.

[brewmann04]

Yost Greatest move just might be the Home and Away Platoon of Bush and McClung

[MadisonBrewerBlue]

at least Yost didnt run out of position players and have to use a pitcher, Brandon Looper to PH in the 10th inning like La Russa did.

[Fatter than Joey]

at least Yost didnt run out of position players and have to use a pitcher, Brandon Looper to PH in the 10th inning like La Russa did.

 

I wouldn't mind Yost using Yo or CC in a PH appearance in an extra innings game. Looper is a decent hitting pitcher.

 

Batting Torres was dumb.

[Fatter than Joey]

I don't agree that you should IBB anybody. Guys get themselves out more than half the time at worst. If Pujols beats us, he beats us. There is a greater than half chance he makes an out. There is no reason to walk the guy.

 

Giving an IBB to Pujols would not cost the Brewers anything, and set up the force at 2nd. While I will concede that Pujols stands a +50% chance of making an out -- the next non-Pujols batter has probably a greater chance of making an out.

 

I don't like the IBB, but I think this is a case where it makes sense.