Jay Zahn

Announced on the game tonight. He is a "proven winner."

Here's the relief pitcher stats for every National League team. The Tot GP column is the total number of relief pitcher games during the season: Tot GP W L ER SV IP Washington 588 30 27 3.81 46 590.2 Florida 560 29 28 4.02 40 586.2 Atlanta 528 26 20 3.54 36 539.1 Cincinnati 522 23 31 5.10 34 492.2 Colorado 521 35 26 3.85 39 528.2 St. Louis 516 30 12 4.00 34 546.2 Milwaukee 512 23 32 4.15 49 511.1 NY Mets 499 22 21 3.99 39 511.2 Philadelphia 498 28 23 4.41 42 520.0 San Francisco 496 20 33 4.10 37 485.0 San Diego 485 30 25 3.01 45 549.2 LA Dodgers 483 24 19 3.82 43 533.0 Chicago Cubs 478 21 27 3.76 39 491.0 Houston 476 25 21 4.62 38 507.0 Arizona 470 30 19 3.95 51 483.0 Pittsburgh 470 22 24 4.77 32 514.2 You know, the Brewers sure look in the middle of the pack in both number of games pitched and innings pitched by the relievers. I just don't see a lot of overuse there. As far as projections go, I don't think there was ever a point in the season where several relievers were projected to be used in 80+ games. April was the month where Yost used the bullpen the most - had that trend continued, the relievers project out to 505 games over 162 games (I know the Brewers actually used 512, but that included September which will always be higher because of expanded rosters.) However, that was followed by May which was by far the easiest month at 419, then three months of 467, 462, and 486 (August, where the starting pitching was terrible.) So any overuse in May was balanced by the restrained use in June. Matt Wise after April was always projected for a game workload somewhere in the 60s. As I've said before I do not feel that Turnbow's workload was tremendously out of line with what he's done before. Certainly not to the point that he should lose his control in early August. I think it's asking a lot of any manager when his fragile bullpen can't stand the strain of being used a normal amount, and his high in IP for a starter barely cracks 200.

Turnbow was NOT overused this year, okay? Item 1 - 12 National League pitchers (there are only 16 National League teams) pitched more games than Turnbow. All but two of them also pitched more innings. (There were a number of relief pitchers who pitched more innings than Turnbow in fewer games.) In fact four teams had two pitchers who pitched more games than Turnbow. Item 2 - Turnbow's usage was comparable to prior years, including 2005 when he pitched very well in the second half of the season. None of the pitchers used in more games than Turnbow had nearly the disparity he did between the first and second half. The closest would be Feliciano, whose second half ERA of 3.70 is actually quite comparable to Turnbow's FIRST HALF ERA of 3.49. Turnbow never had good control at any point in the season. In the first half it was kind of managable and the second half it was terrible. Turnbow good? Turnbow useful? Who cares if we wore him out, which we didn't. Frankly, he wasn't that much help. Seems like it might help to be one of the 10-12 teams who has a reliever who can pitch 70+ games and 70+ innings without his ERA jumping 2 and a half runs in the second half. Not that his ERA was all that low in the first half. Somehow Turnbow, in all of those 10-1 blowouts he was pitching in and being overused, managed to rack up 33 holds, tied for 3rd in the league. How sad that we have a pitcher with a 4.63 ERA and 33 holds. Sadder still that the manager had no options to replace him. Maybe we can be like Cincinnati, who leaves in their starters longer because their bullpen is probably worse than ours. Which is difficult to do, I'll admit. Cincinnati's in the playoffs, aren't they?

Now Yost is being criticized for trying too hard to win. I have truly heard it all.

All runs, earned and unearned, were counted. Just a count of how many runs were given up each inning. It's a quick and rough tool but a pretty good indicator I think.

If both Turnbow and Wise are middle relief, one of them should be traded (this could be done after the start of the season.) I would like that last spot to go to a rookie or young reliever. The Brewers need to develop some bullpen help from within and that last spot is a good place to have a rookie. The problem I have with Spurling is not that he was especially bad but that he isn't a prospect. Why waste the garbage innings on someone you don't look to for potential long term value?

The Brewers bullpen was in fact the worst in the league. I made a comparison of how many runs were given up by each team in the 7th, 8th, and 9th inning compared to the MLB average. For example, if the league average for runs given up in the 7th inning were 5 runs and the Brewers gave up 5.5, they would get a -0.5 for the seventh inning. If they gave up 4.25, they would get a +0.75, and so on. Here's the National League for 2007: Mets 2.33 Rockies 2.17 Cubs 1.68 Padres 1.67 Dodgers 1.42 Cardinals 0.82 Braves 0.5 Nationals 0.49 Giants 0.44 Diamondbacks -0.06 Astros -0.3 Pirates -1.04 Marlins -1.93 Phillies -2.2 Reds -3.04 Brewers -3.14 The Reds are really the only comparable team, and they play in a hitters' park (I didn't adjust for parks.) Miller Park is neutral. Look at the stats. No manager is going to be able to make moves to mask that sort of junk. If you think someone could actually get Turnbow, Wise, et al to pitch better, then that's something else.

I swear that most of the Yost critics never watch any other manager make moves. First, the reason why moves don't matter as much as people think. Suppose you have a situation where you have a .250 hitter at the plate and you can replace him with a .300 hitter. Say that you don't make the move for whatever reason. Only 1 time in 20 will it make a difference. Because 25% of the time either player would get a hit, and 70% of the time neither will get a hit. Only 5% of the time will the .300 hitter succeed and the .250 hitter fail. But what happens is if the .250 player makes an out (which either player will do 70% of the time) the manager is going to be blamed every time. So the manager gets a 75% "blame percentage" when only 5% was under his control. Besides, let's look at the two cases that the critics are always bringing up. In the "Mench game", maybe Yost wanted to stay with Mench because he already had driven in a couple of runs. Maybe because Mench hit well in Wrigley Field (check the stats.) Maybe because Jenkins hadn't done that much against Dempster. Maybe because the warmed-up guy in the lineup normally does better than the guy coming in cold off the bench, maybe especially in a tight situation like that one. Jenkins is not Fielder or Braun or one of the stars of this team anymore. He's a fading vet. Was a good player for years, but he is what he is in 2007. I'm not going to go through the whole Aquino game again, but it never should have come to that except for the failures of Sheets, McClung, Turnbow, and Estrada as well as Aquino. Although closers on any team rarely pitch more than one inning, yeah Yost should have tried that particular time. It's still only one batter - as I said earlier the difference between Cordero and Aquino is only going to matter 5 to 10 percent of the time. The failures of the other pitchers played a lot bigger part in the game than anything Yost did. Watch the playoff games. Look at the rosters. For the four remaining teams I see a deep bullpen, a deep bullpen, a deep bullpen, and a deep bullpen. Not the crap that Yost had to work with. Watch how Eric Wedge manages or Clint Hurdle manages, and see them in all of their "genius." You take your favorite manager of all time and the crap the Brewers had for the bullpen, and I'll take Ned Yost or Harvey Kuenn or Dale Sveum or Kremblas or whatever vanilla manager you want to throw at me with a deep bullpen, and I'll beat you every single time. Do you know how many times the genius Eric Wedge used his closer more than one inning this year? Zero. Moreover, their closer isn't even very good. It doesn't matter, because they have two ace starters and their setup guys are studs. Yost had a bunch of C-level starters and his setup guy was Turnbow. Turnbow pitching in the LCS would truly be a sight to behold, no doubt.

Baldkin and others who claim Turnbow was overworked - he wasn't. Look at the stats. Turnbow pitched in 77 games. That's good for 13th place in number of games by a pitcher. Turnbow had the most on the Brewers, and there are only 16 teams in the NL, it isn't particularly notable. The Padres, noted for their great bullpen, had two pitchers who pitched more games and innings than Turnbow - Heath Bell, who was great, and also Cla Meredith. Turnbow pitched a normal workload for a setup man. He just wasn't as good or as consistent as some others. he pitched 42 games before the all star break, only 35 afterwards. His stats over previous years have shown he's terrible when he pitches back to back days, but he was still thrown out there to do that time and time again, and it failed. When the manager puts the pitcher in a position where he is less likely to succeed, instead of managing the bullpen to get the most success out of who he has there and their individual skills and talents, that's where the problem comes in. That's why I vote Nay. Turnbow pitched 42 games in the first half, 35 in the second.The Brewers played 88 games in the first half, 74 in the second. 88/162 * 77 = 41.83, which is the number of games a pitcher used in 77 games would be expected to pitch in the first half would pitch. Turnbow pitched 42. That's the closest to "the same" as you're going to get. As for Turnbow pitching back to back days, before 2007 the stats were not dramatic. In both 2005 and 2006 he had better ERAs with no rest than with a day's rest. Turnbow's best ERAs come with 2 days rest, but a relief pitcher that can only be used for one innning every three days is fairly useless to any manager.

Baldkin and others who claim Turnbow was overworked - he wasn't. Look at the stats. Turnbow pitched in 77 games. That's good for 13th place in number of games by a pitcher. Turnbow had the most on the Brewers, and there are only 16 teams in the NL, it isn't particularly notable. The Padres, noted for their great bullpen, had two pitchers who pitched more games and innings than Turnbow - Heath Bell, who was great, and also Cla Meredith. Turnbow pitched a normal workload for a setup man. He just wasn't as good or as consistent as some others.

I'm incredulous that anyone would think the Brewers would go into next year with Turnbow as closer. You can't sell tickets to a team that's doing that. Closer by committee would be a better sell.

Most of what the manager does revolves around the clubhouse. Except for the rare few that can make a 10+ year run, they're a cheerleader or fiery guy or laid back or old-timer or some combination of all. When the team falls into a rut or the manager becomes too much of a distraction it's time to make a move. Moves are way over rated. That genius Harvey Kuenn had to make so many moves. Boy that was a tough lineup to fill out - Hall of Famer, Hall of Famer, All Star, All Star, All Star, All Star. What about the bullpen? Whoops - another Hall of Famer. Tough decisions there. At the end of the season Yost had about three options in the bullpen that were any good. Yost used Cordero like every other team uses their closer and it looks bad when the set-up guys can't ever get you to your closer. Linebrink was just okay, and this is the only year that Shouse has ever been able to get a righthander out. So Yost chooses someone when he has no options, the team blows the lead, and fans blame the manager. I am a little surprised that more blame doesn't accrue to some of the other players that didn't contribute very much during the second half, like Sheets, Jenkins, Hall, and Estrada. Nice work, veterans.

I'm not scoffing at the theory behind the leverage index, or the implementation of those theories. I'm just saying that actually keeping one in the dugout that the manager needs to look at before making pitching changes seems far-fetched. That kind of knowledge and intuition should be ingrained in a good manager. Also, there is a lot of other stuff going on that needs to be processed in real-time game situations. For example, last weeks game against the Astros had huge implications for the Brewers. They had just stormed back from behind, and needed that game to keep pace with the Cubs. Cordero needed to be used. I want my manager to realize the importance of that situation, and no index is going to tell him that. It just doesn't seem reasonable to have a manager relying too much on charts and indexes during the game. Earl Weaver used charts and notecards. Football coaches have charts telling them when to go for two. Why leave it to chance? If you have a resource, use it.

Would you care to elaborate on this a little? It's very vague. I think he means that instead of making a list of reasons why you hate Yost, you should compare him to other managers on a qualitative basis. For example, compare Yost's use of bunting or the stolen base to other managers. Yost's use of his closer to other managers. Yost's defensive substitution to other managers. Then explain how what Yost does is different and why it's worse than the average manager, or the good managers.

The idea that any manager is going to win a ton of games on the chess match type of stuff is not something I agree with. So I guess I don't agree with all the bashers who think that Yost cost us 5 or 7 or 10 games this year by not making the right move. Yeah, it's important to make the moves as well as you can. But people overestimate the amount that it matters in wins and losses. They also overestimate how many managers are really very good at that sort of stuff. Dusty Baker? Bob Brenly? Don Zimmer? Sparky Anderson? Harvey Kuenn? As others have said, the most important role of a manager is managing the personalities in the clubhouse. Other biggies are being able to get along with the GM and owner, and identifying which are the most productive players. Buck Rodgers I'm sure was sounder on the moves than Kuenn, but he lost the players. The strengths and weaknesses of this team are pretty obvious. The low OBP of the offense wastes a lot of the home runs. The starting pitching over the course of the season has actually been better than people think, but the bullpen's one of the worst in baseball no matter how you slice it. No manager could manage this bullpen well, unless he actually got the relievers to issue fewer hits and walks. If you want to blame Yost or Maddux or Melvin for not developing enough bullpen talent, that's a lot bigger issue in wins and losses than switching this guy for that guy. For most of the season we've been one or two men short of what the good bullpens have. Blame Yost for that if you want. George Bamberger was the best I've ever seen at developing pitching talent, and maybe Yost is no Bamberger, or Yost/Maddux is no LaRussa/Duncan or Cox/Mazzone. Not being able to fill the pitching staff with quality guys is a lot bigger than who pitches in what spot. As for the OBP, I don't see a lot of options that Yost had on the team, but again, if you want a new manager he has to deliver results in that area.

Relating to Yost... I can't believe in a game with what Weeks did and Cordero did, that the critics think it all comes down to Yost. I didn't see the Thorson home run, on radio it sounded like a moon shot. How about trying to make him chase, at least on 0-0? Terrible pitch, anyone? Terrible fielding by Rickie, anyone? I know the players are not perfect, but if everything Yost is going to be raked over the coals, how about some hate for bad playing?

Last I checked the Brewers were above average in runs allowed in innings 1-5 (compared to other teams allowed in each inning) but below average in innings 6-9. Looking at that and the blown leads this has been a below average bullpen. Maybe it's wiser to take Cordero's money and other resources and get some depth. I don't recommend winging it with a bunch of McClungs.

Who was Yost to bring in for Turnbow? Linebrink probably wasn't available, Shouse is gone, it's a tie game so even if Cordero pitches the eighth and ninth then who do you bring in? The rest of the bullpen is pretty sorry, except maybe Wise gets another shot considering the other options. Maybe Capuano could get through part of an inning without giving up a dinger, but that's only a maybe.

Keeping this on topic, I understand the frustration of the fans. The team hasn't won in forever. Moreover, they had a lead and have lost it, and due to a poor bullpen have had more lost leads than they have come from behind victories. Compare us to the Cardinals. We're a half game ahead of them, still. The Cardinals are not a good team this year, plus now they have a ton of injuries. Are Cardinals fans happier? Probably. They just won a championship last year, with not the strongest team to boot, so they're probably in a very forgiving mood. Plus they've come from back in the pack - much more enjoyable than losing a lead. They've also had a stronger bullpen than us, and weaker starters, so more opportunities for satisfying come-from-behind wins. Yost has probably become a lightning rod because the failures of the team have generally been spaced out among many players. Last year there were many injuries and Turnbow's meltdown, so those got a lot of attention. This year, what player do you blame? Hall and Weeks have been down, but Hall had the position switch to deal with and Weeks had the wrist injury. Capuano has been the most disappointing player, I'd wager. The bullpen has been sort of below average all over, and even Cordero has been average to good and not really great for a closer. Brian Shouse is not the second coming. The fan criticism of Yost has gotten ridiculous - people are second guessing taking Braun out for defense in the 8th with a 3 run lead. That's moronic.