Ned Yost Yay or Nay thread: Hardball Times rips Yost

[Brewer Fever]

Since Ned Yost is in danger of having the two worst second half collapses by a manager in baseball history by a team with a winning record at the All-Star break, (yes he holds the record) is there anyone out there that thinks he returns as manager if the Brewers wind up below .500?

 

There is no current manager in MLB that has managed with his current team longer than Yost who has a worse winning percentage. What reason is there to keep him around if what appears to be inevitable, happens?

[bklynbrewcrew]

He needs to go now. This mistake filled baseball is an absolute joke. Lack of fundamentals falls on a coaching staff and Ned must take the fall now. Let Krembals have a shot and if that doesnt work out bring in Bobby valentine for next year. Valentine is a fiery leader and great in game manager. The mistake filled garbage that we have been watching will not occur under the managerial skills of one Bobby Valentine. Enough is enough. Ned must go and he must go now.

[brewcrewnation]

Yes, i think who ever goes to the game tomorrow should stand up in the top of the 2nd inning and start chaning Fire Ned now!

[sbrylski]

Yes! Why didn't he tell the defense not to make errors?

 

Lack of fundamentals falls on a coaching staff and Ned must take the fall now. ... The mistake filled garbage that we have been watching will not occur under the managerial skills of one Bobby Valentine.

 

I don't think it's Yost's fault our players can't throw. I think its the player's fault. I have a feeling Bobby Valentine isn't going to rework our positional player's throwing mechanics.

[epeeters43]

It might not be Yost's fault with the errors, but I dont think he does a very good job managing the pitching. Letting Suppon hit in his last at-bat seemed pretty dumb to me. We were down three runs and Suppon was already at 98 pitches. Soup bats and strikes out and then proceeds to give up a home run in the next inning. Then after getting two outs, Yost decides to pull him and use Shouse. I just dont think that was very well managed.

[sheethead]

I don't think it's Yost's fault our players can't throw. I think its the player's fault. I have a feeling Bobby Valentine isn't going to rework our positional player's throwing mechanics.

Playing a shift in a double play situation is Yost's fault. He set the players up to fail in that situation, as he has done in so many, many situations before.

[AdvantageSchneider]

Other teams play shifts and don't seem to have those kinds of problems.

It's a simple game, you catch the ball you throw the ball.....

[NeedMoreFans]

I don't blame Yost for everything. This is a really young team, and a lot of then haven't played a full season yet. Braun, Hardy, Weeks, Hart, Gallardo, Villaneuva and others haven't played a full season yet. Maybe they are getting tired out a bit. The youth of the team is not Yost's fault.

[MNBrew]

If Yost is truly guilty of anything, it's having too much faith in his players and their abilities . . . which is good, but not when they are playing tight and need to loosen up. Maybe he has more confidence in them than they have in their play right now.

 

The team is prepared well for how to play. It's not Yost's fault they don't execute.

 

Melvin's been around the game long enough to know the difference between an inept manager and a team simply not playing well. The Twins didn't fire Tom Kelly in the mid-'90s in spite of some bad teams because they knew the issue was relative lack of talent and payroll handcuffing by their billionaire owner. They still went out and generally played fundamentally solid baseball. They were just overmatched more often than not. The Twins' leadership understood that Tom Kelly was still a good manager and was still going about things the right way.

 

What I wish Yost would do would be to share what his mentor Bobby Cox has told him about how to handle ridiculously bad stretches like the Brewers are having now. I'm sure Cox has some nice wisdom Ned can learn from. And if Yost hasn't made that call yet, well, I guess he's really only guilty of two things, then, the sum of which don't justify a firing, not by a long shot.

[AdvantageSchneider]

I wonder if the hot start and the big lead is where all the venom is coming from. I wonder if the crew had hovered around .500 ball the entire season and if we were always near first, but never in it, and now we would be only .5 games back, I wonder if Ned wouldn't be on the hot seat, but instead would be praised as doing a great job guiding the young team into a pennat race. Perhaps the hot start skewed our view of the team and now everyone can't get past that hot start to see the true flaws of the team, that they just aren't as good as we all wished they would be.

 

I don't know what to think anymore.

[AJAY]

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b273/AJAY_02/Failure3.jpg

 

 

[splitterpfj]

If the Brewers finish with a winning record, I think Ned has a good chance of returning - playoffs or not. If the team does a nosedive the rest of the way, I can't see why they wouldn't make a change after the season.

[tigerbrew]

I think Ned Yost needs to be replace now, he is not qualifed and unsuitable.

Before Ned got this job, he had very little managerial experience in the minors and none in the majors. His track record as a minor league manager is poor, it pales in comparison to Frank Kremblas. As the Brewers manager, his track record is poor, a horrible road record, and he managed the team to the worst second half collapse in baseball history last year.

The reason Ned got this job and stayed so long is because he is a very good talker. He convinced Doug his passion for the Brewers in his interview. But being a successful big league manager is more than a glib tongue, it requires ability and experience which Ned lacks. I think Ned needs to go down and be a successful minor league manager first, and work his way up to the big leagues.

[trwi7]

I don't blame Yost for everything. This is a really young team, and a lot of then haven't played a full season yet. Braun, Hardy, Weeks, Hart, Gallardo, Villaneuva and others haven't played a full season yet. Maybe they are getting tired out a bit. The youth of the team is not Yost's fault.

 

I don't get this argument. For the most part the young players are the ONLY ones producing.

[DannoMac21]

Get him out.

[Brian the Automator]

Seems that we've had more than one fire Ned or not thread around here recently, but since this one's picking up steam, I'm going to keep this one open. Please consolidate all Ned yay or nay discussion to this thread.

[JJHardy7]

I've said it a few times around here, but I just don't think the players are listening to him anymore. It's happened with other teams and I just think he's lost the team a bit. I blame him for some strange shifts we've had this year. We have a young team that makes young mistakes and at times keeps making them. That's where I think that's Ned's fault. Address the issue in some way. I personally think the Weeks "benching" was handled poorly -- he played the game after he was declared benched.

 

But if Ned was a parent, I'd love to have him growing up. You'd be grounded for what a day at most?

 

He's a good guy, but it should be somewhere else last year if we don't finish .500 or possibly playoffs.

[brewmann04]

while it not all Ned fault for the team Failure ,I believe the Brewers need to make a change through the whole Coaching staff. The team Defense is horrible and someone needs to be held accountable.

Funny Cinny has the best record in the Cental since hiring a new man.

[Brian the Automator]

I take the same position I've taken all year:

 

.500 or less: fired

over .500: retained

 

Either way, I'm not heartbroken though. I've given Ned a B- grade pretty much constantly, but it's moved into C territory.

[Ennder]

I don't think Yost is the problem for this team, I don't think he is really the solution either. If the team does end up under .500 on the year I would hope they fire him. I think the next 40 games more or less decides his fate. I think this team only had the talent of an 83 win team to start the year and a number of players have underperformed so I'm not all that surprised by the results, but the team has just looked horrible this last two weeks.

[DougJones43]

Wait until the season is over to make a decision. I've never cared much for Yost, but who knows, maybe the Brewers can right the ship. In that case it would be pretty difficult to justify firing a manager whose team made the playoffs. If the Brewers finish under .500 though, Yost has to go without a doubt.

 

But like I said, just wait until this all plays out before a decision is made. If things are going to change, I'd prefer it happen with a fresh start going into next season, where a whole new staff could work with the guys from Day 1. If somebody like Kremblas is going to get a chance, the last thing I would want would be for it to happen under circumstances like getting thrown into the middle of this mess. That being said, if Yost were to be fired now, the logical choice to replace him as an interim manager for the rest of this season would probably be one of the other blockheads currently on the staff (I'm looking at you Dale Sveum), which would pretty much defeat the purpose of changing managers anyhow, as the team wouldn't really be going in a different direction.

[RightFieldCoder]

What do you do with a manager whose team always collapses in the 2nd half?

 

You don't fire him in the offseason. You fire him shortly before the 2nd half. I say ride him at the beginning of next year and cut him in June. It really sucks, but only about as bad as his teams in the 2nd half.

[AJAY]

As I have posted in another thread . . . . I am just not seeing enough progress despite boosting the payroll and adding talent like Ryan Braun, Yovani Gallardo, Johnny Estrada, Jeff Suppan, and Scott Linebrink this year. And if you realiize that Prince Fielder is having an MVP season, it really makes me even more mad that this team is not doing better.

 

1) We continue to play like garbage on the road.

2) We continue to choke during the second half of every season

3) We were supposed to have an easy schedule but instead are being schooled by bad teams like the Cardinals, Cubs, Nationals, Pirates, and Reds

4) We continue to get beat by rookie pitchers and pitchers with terrible records (like Kip Wells and Bronson Arroyo)

5) We completely stink with runners in scoring position

6) We fail to tack on runs and put the game out of reach when we have a lead.

7) We never hit and run or do anything to create excitement or motion

8 ) We never try to bunt when the opposing pitcher is dominating us

9) We play in the weakest division in baseball and still look like garbage.

 

The same problems never ever get fixed and I am so tired of it. Ned absolutely must go.

 

I am also going to start to hold Doug Melvin more accountable too. That may not be popular, but he hasn't exactly done a good job of balancing the lineup with high average / on-base / speed types. I still think we need some more little guys who can do the fundamental things (like Mark Loretta, Fernando Vina, David Eckstein, etc.) The guys we rely on (like Jenkins and Hall) are just not the type you can execute with. I want some more scrappy / tough out types.

 

This team needs to seriously overhaul it's approach to offense rather than collect individual parts that don't fit together as a team.

 

Plenty of blame to go around.

[JJHardy7]

From an offensive standpoint I maybe think Melvin thought Weeks would provide something more with the speed and fundamentals. He had a very good approach coming up and now it seems that was a long time ago. I agree a lot with the speed though. Hart is a fast guy, but I see him developing into more of a power hitter. I think maybe Gwynn could fill that role (now what is his ceiling and all that I don't know), but if Gwynn continues to develop that would help next year.

 

I also wonder, did Melvin actually see us contending this year when the team was assembled? I mean that's awfully difficult to draft guys and have them assembled for one year. I guess I would put more blame on Melvin in free agency or trades for not bringing in another piece that may have helped (ie not Counsell).

[wisportswriter]

AJAY, in that entire list, I see only Nos. 7 and 8 that you could pin on the manager.

And even those are debatable, as half the population would argue just the opposite.

 

(edit)

Oh, and I agree with The Automator.

+.500 he stays, -.500 he goes. Imagine the drama if the team finishes 81-81. http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/tongue.gif

 

I'm for giving Yost one more year with this group, as my expectations were only of a slightly-above-.500 team this year, which is what they are.

But I'd have him on a fairly short leash next season.