2019 Misc MLB News

[bork]

Yost to retire after this season.

 

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article235384632.html

 

I wonder if the Royals will promote Sveum to manager if not I would really like to see the Brewers bring him back as the hitting coach.

 

Another article said that Matheny is the likely replacement.

 

Interesting that Yost is the winningest manager in KC history and has the best postseason winning pct in MLB history.

[Ennder]

Yost to retire after this season.

 

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article235384632.html

 

Good manager, nice managerial career with 16 years as skipper. Too bad he was fired in 2008 as a knee jerk reaction, probably would have gotten more out of the 2009 and 2010 clubs than Ken Macha.

 

Yost is probably the worst manager the team ever had, but Macha really wasn't much better.

[homer]

Can you imagine Yost with this year's team?

[Baldkin]

Yost to retire after this season.

 

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article235384632.html

 

Good manager, nice managerial career with 16 years as skipper. Too bad he was fired in 2008 as a knee jerk reaction, probably would have gotten more out of the 2009 and 2010 clubs than Ken Macha.

 

I mean, if Yost had one great talent, it was in coaching guys like Dave Bush, Jeff Suppan and Braden Looper to throw with sub 3 ERA's.

[Baldkin]

Can you imagine Yost with this year's team?

 

"Josh is our closer. Freddy is our 8th inning guy. Burnsie is our 7th inning guy. That's how we work."

[topper09er]

Can you imagine Yost with this year's team?

 

"Josh is our closer. Freddy is our 8th inning guy. Burnsie is our 7th inning guy. That's how we work."

 

"Chacin is one of the guys that got us here"

 

"Shaw is our guy"

 

"I will bring in Alex Claudio to face Pat Burrell every chance I get"

[pacopete4]

Chacin was given a lot of rope. Shaw too. Claudio spent the first half of the year being tossed in against righties.

[Jopal78]

Yost to retire after this season.

 

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article235384632.html

 

Good manager, nice managerial career with 16 years as skipper. Too bad he was fired in 2008 as a knee jerk reaction, probably would have gotten more out of the 2009 and 2010 clubs than Ken Macha.

 

Yost is probably the worst manager the team ever had, but Macha really wasn't much better.

 

I think you're forgetting Davey Lopes, easily the worst manager the Brewers have had since the 1970s.

 

As for Yost, he pushed all the right buttons in KC to get to the World Series twice and win it once. I don't think he magically learned how to manage in the year he sat out between Milwaukee and Kansas City. Secondly, he inherited a load of crap and the Brewers were one of the progenitor's of tanking his first 4 seasons. Then when he finally had some hitters, his starting pitching staff consisted of Ben Sheets, four band aids and Yovanni Gallardo as a rookie. Likewise, his bullpen was a motley crew of aging veterans and cast offs.

 

The bottom line is in an era when Managers are shown the door after 3-4 years, you don't become the longest tenured manager in the American League and 3rd longest tenured manager overall, nor last 16 years as a big league manager by being a stooge.

[pacopete4]

Per Rosenthal:

Former Brewers GM Doug Melvin, who hired Ned Yost in Milwaukee, recalls asking Yost in 2005 if he wanted the team to demote Rickie Weeks and J.J. Hardy, neither of whom appeared ready. Yost’s unselfish answer: “I’ll take the losses on my back now for wins in those kids’ futures.”

 

Pretty great story.

[DHonks]

I loved Yost’s honesty. He managed better than most in the game at the time because he and Maddux tracked more than most (like pitches in the bullpen). Macha was supposed to be good, but he was a train-wreck. Those are the only times I’ve ever given up on a Brewers team, and one year I did so in May. Lopes is hard to evaluate, as he had no pitching.

[homer]

 

 

The bottom line is in an era when Managers are shown the door after 3-4 years, you don't become the longest tenured manager in the American League and 3rd longest tenured manager overall, nor last 16 years as a big league manager by being a stooge.

 

I think a stooge could have easily managed that KC bullpen to a World Series. Wade Davis might have had one of the greatest seasons a reliever has ever had.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

 

 

The bottom line is in an era when Managers are shown the door after 3-4 years, you don't become the longest tenured manager in the American League and 3rd longest tenured manager overall, nor last 16 years as a big league manager by being a stooge.

 

I think a stooge could have easily managed that KC bullpen to a World Series. Wade Davis might have had one of the greatest seasons a reliever has ever had.

 

That bullpen was the equivalent of giving a legally blind squirrel lasik surgery which then enables it to locate nuts. Yost simply wore bullpens down to the point the Brewers faded every August/September. The KC pen was Yost-proof.

[DHonks]

 

 

The bottom line is in an era when Managers are shown the door after 3-4 years, you don't become the longest tenured manager in the American League and 3rd longest tenured manager overall, nor last 16 years as a big league manager by being a stooge.

 

I think a stooge could have easily managed that KC bullpen to a World Series. Wade Davis might have had one of the greatest seasons a reliever has ever had.

 

That bullpen was the equivalent of giving a legally blind squirrel lasik surgery which then enables it to locate nuts. Yost simply wore bullpens down to the point the Brewers faded every August/September. The KC pen was Yost-proof.

 

He also didn’t have a genius GM that constantly churns the 24th and 25th spots in order to maximize his bullpen performance

[Jopal78]

 

 

The bottom line is in an era when Managers are shown the door after 3-4 years, you don't become the longest tenured manager in the American League and 3rd longest tenured manager overall, nor last 16 years as a big league manager by being a stooge.

 

I think a stooge could have easily managed that KC bullpen to a World Series. Wade Davis might have had one of the greatest seasons a reliever has ever had.

 

That bullpen was the equivalent of giving a legally blind squirrel lasik surgery which then enables it to locate nuts. Yost simply wore bullpens down to the point the Brewers faded every August/September. The KC pen was Yost-proof.

 

Then again when you’ve got Wes Obermueller going five innings or less in 50% of his starts, you end up going to the pen early and often

[Ennder]

I am pretty laid back with managers in general. Usually there is what I feel is the optimum play, there are 2 or 3 choices that make sense and then 1 or 2 that only an utter fool would do. Yost consistently lived in the utter fool area. Never seen a manager that was so bad at the in game part of managing before. Royals fans have been begging for him to be gone since 2014, most even wanted him gone during the world series run. Here is just one detailed example of how bad he was, if you search you can find quite a few more and if you pour over the box scores you probably find triple digit horrible decisions.

 

https://www.royalsreview.com/2014/9/15/6150833/the-needful-end-of-ned-yost

 

You will notice in this case he didn't go to the lefty even though the batter up was one of the worst in the entire game against lefties. Everyone in the stadium was surprised including the hitter and the other teams manager. When asked why he did it after the game Yost replied he wanted a strike out. The RP's K/9 was 5.0, one of the worst in the league. Then when asked why he didn't use a different specific pitcher his reply was "Asked why he didn’t just use Herrera in that spot then, Yost said: “Aaron Crow’s inning is the sixth inning. Kelvin’s is the seventh"

 

Yost was just awful. Probably the worst manager I've ever seen in my 40 years of watching baseball, at least at in game managing. I can't speak to the off the field stuff. He was the Yuni B of managers.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

 

Then again when you’ve got Wes Obermueller going five innings or less in 50% of his starts, you end up going to the pen early and often

 

Nah, I'm not going to let history be re-written. Yost used 4-5 relievers when he could have used 2-3 all the time. If he had a reliever pitch a quick clean inning leading up to the 7th or 8th, it didn't matter how little rest the designated 7th or 8th inning guys had, they were coming in.

 

Two stark differences between Yost and Counsell that make the latter so much more effective are Craig's deployment of relievers for multiple innings, and using his best guys when ahead, with his bottom guys deployed when behind. He also handles Hader in a much more effective way then Yost ever would have.

 

Yost would burn guys one inning at a time and use them damn near everyday, even when trailing. You're not going 162-0 and no reliever is making 162 appearances, so you have to pick your spots. Yost didn't, and by year end the pen was shot.

[DHonks]

 

Then again when you’ve got Wes Obermueller going five innings or less in 50% of his starts, you end up going to the pen early and often

 

Nah, I'm not going to let history be re-written. Yost used 4-5 relievers when he could have used 2-3 all the time. If he had a reliever pitch a quick clean inning leading up to the 7th or 8th, it didn't matter how little rest the designated 7th or 8th inning guys had, they were coming in.

 

Two stark differences between Yost and Counsell that make the latter so much more effective are Craig's deployment of relievers for multiple innings, and using his best guys when ahead, with his bottom guys deployed when behind. He also handles Hader in a much more effective way then Yost ever would have.

 

Yost would burn guys one inning at a time and use them damn near everyday, even when trailing. You're not going 162-0 and no reliever is making 162 appearances, so you have to pick your spots. Yost didn't, and by year end the pen was shot.

 

 

Counsell is one of the first to really utilize relievers in multiple innings. So can't really compare them. As for him over-using the pen, I don't get it. The huge complaint when he was our manager was that he often didn't bring people in and went to lesser relievers. Then in the post-game presser we'd find out our 8th inning guy was unavailable due to throwing too many pitches in games and in the pen recently. The Brewers under Maddux were the first team I heard of that tracked all pitches thrown, including bullpen pitches. Generally if they got you up, they tried to get you into the game.

 

Hands down, our worst manager in recent history was Ken Macha. He lost his teams almost immediately, and his teams were huge underperformers. Yost did great at his job, which was to stand by the kids, let them play, and hold them accountable by teaching the game the right way. He was a great manager for a team with young, talented players just breaking into MLB. For a contending team with different aspirations, he may not have been good. But he was the first manager since Scrap Iron that I personally liked and wanted to see find success.

[owbc]

Derrick Turnbow and Eric Gagne are the two players that remind me most of Ned Yost. And not in a good way. I was at a couple games where I think the crowd was about to forcibly remove those pitchers from the game. Was it entirely Yost's fault that management kept those guys on the roster? No. But for months they got put in the game in high leverage situations and repeatedly failed. In a pennant race!!!

 

But I will give Yost credit. In that 2003-2005 era he got entertaining baseball out of some garbage rosters. Maybe we had low expectations but to this day I have no idea how that 2004 team was over .500 at the all-star break...a team whose best 2 hitters were Lyle Overbay and Keith Ginter.

[RollieTime]

 

 

The bottom line is in an era when Managers are shown the door after 3-4 years, you don't become the longest tenured manager in the American League and 3rd longest tenured manager overall, nor last 16 years as a big league manager by being a stooge.

 

I think a stooge could have easily managed that KC bullpen to a World Series. Wade Davis might have had one of the greatest seasons a reliever has ever had.

 

I’m obviously not a Counsell fan, but I think the same could be said about the 2018 bullpen honestly. I don’t think anybody could push a wrong button with Hader, Jeffress, Woodruff, Burnes, and Knebel when he was absolutely lights out down the stretch. But then I also think it’s fair to point out that Jeffress was obviously worn out down the stretch and into the postseason and Counsell still continued to trot him out there, directly leading to a Game 2 NLCS loss as well as giving up a ton of baserunners in almost all of his appearances. His numbers could be much worse from last postseason than what they were. Even big Counsell supporters should be scratching their heads and questioning how Jeffress was used in October when all of us could see that something wasn’t right with him.

[Ennder]

Jeffress was one of the best RP in the game in Sept of 2018. He faced 37 batters in the month, only gave up 3 hits and had 15 strike outs to 3 walks. Jeffress did not look tired at all going into the playoffs last year. In fact Sept was the best month of his season. Jeffress pitched poorly in the playoffs and maybe Counsell should have backed off of him more than he did, but he wasn't gassed going into them so he had to be given a decent amount of leash. He was given like 8 days off at one point in the playoffs, so he should have been rested, gave up the big HR and then wasn't used in a high leverage situation again in the playoffs. The one game where he maybe should not have pitched was game 7 but that was in the 6th inning and the entire bullpen had been used heavily so hard to know if it was going to be avoidable using him.

[sveumrules]

Even big Counsell supporters should be scratching their heads and questioning how Jeffress was used in October when all of us could see that something wasn’t right with him.

 

Many posters here saw so much wrong with this team (pitching, clutch hitting, can't hit lefties, etc) they thought there was no way we could go on a run to get back into the postseason picture...yet here we are.

 

The organization has far more insight than what any number of fans believes they are seeing.

[Baldkin]

 

Hands down, our worst manager in recent history was Ken Macha. He lost his teams almost immediately, and his teams were huge underperformers. Yost did great at his job, which was to stand by the kids, let them play, and hold them accountable by teaching the game the right way. He was a great manager for a team with young, talented players just breaking into MLB. For a contending team with different aspirations, he may not have been good. But he was the first manager since Scrap Iron that I personally liked and wanted to see find success.

 

Here are Ken Macha's starting pitchers:

 

2009:

Looper

Gallardo

Suppan

Parra

Bush

 

2010:

Wolf

Gallardo

Bush

Narveson

Parra

 

But yeah, they totally underperformed playing nearly .500 ball for two seasons.

[homer]

Macha was crotchety but I feel like he at least knew how to handle a bullpen.

[Zad Fnark]

How did Yost deal with La Russa's BS?

[homer]

How did Yost deal with La Russa's BS?

 

Didn't Yost bean a guy in like a one or two run game? I seem to recall something like that happening.

 

Edit: I think it was this game:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3039761

 

With the Brewers trailing 3-2 in the eighth, McClung threw the

ball behind Pujols, clipping the Cardinals slugger on the right

elbow. St. Louis went on to score four runs in the inning and won

the game 7-3.

 

This was a September game in the middle of a pennant race mind you. Fireable offense, IMO.