Fatter than Joey

First off, in your world where the manager is to blame for everything, Yost getting ejected should be a good thing. I think Yost sucks, though I have never stated that he is to blame for everything, nor do I even remotely think that -- the statement above is entirely your rant. When I make posts in this thread, it is primarily to discuss the sucktitude of Yost, not other players -- than can be done in other threads. I think it is a bad thing for Yost to get ejected. It reflects poorly on our organization, and it takes the focus off of winning the game, and more on Yost's beef of the night. Plus in all reality, he is still calling the shots from the clubhouse Getting squeezed by the umps? Come on! Did you watch the game? Do you really think Turnbow was getting squeezed? Those pitches weren't close. Nobody was getting squeezed Granted Turnbow looked awful -- but I guarantee you he had a small strike zone, regardless of his inability to hit it. I understand the appeal of blaming the manager,because it provides an easy answer. Much easier than facing the reality that we need to completely revamp the bullpen if we want any chance of winning next year, or coming to grips with the fact that the bottom of our order has been completely useless Again -- this is 100% you imposing your rant on me. I think Yost sucks, and I think elements of our BP suck -- I think all things that suck should be removed. I wanted Tbow gone years ago, and I took a lot of crap for that. Ned Yost was a childish idiot last night, regardless of the outcome of the game. Your position is that you wanted Seth McClung pitching to Albert Pujols? McClung was brought in with the sole purpose of popping Pujols and getting ejected. McClung actually pitching was never an option on the table. The loss in this game is on the offense and Turnbow. There is no one here that was happy with the team's overall performance last night. Turnbow was bad, Hart had a lot of LOBs, etc. The thing is, this thread is to discuss Ned Yost's impact. There are BP threads, Estrada threads, Sheets threads etc. The difference is, as the year goes on, is that the Nedophiles #1 argument in defense of Yost is now "Turnbow sucks", rather than any tangible good that Yost does.

Who exactly is "the rest of the league"? Managers who know they can school Yost, and don't want to see him replaced with a good manager, i.e. "The Glen Mason Effect" What is it people don't understand about the fact that they were going to work around him anyway It is not a fact -- You just don't IBB or HBP any player with no one on and the meat of the lineup coming up. Pujols as good as he is, is still more likely to make an out than reach base. Unless of course some of you think it would be a good idea to have Seth McClung or Derrik Turnbow pitching to Pujols A smart manager would have thought to bring in Cordero. instead of messing around with the unintentional intentional walk. Only an idiot manager would see a HBP as an alternative to a BB. No one gets ejected/suspended for a BB, you don't fire up the other team, you don't get squeezed by the umps, etc. If Yost needs Seth McClung to hit Pujols for the Brewer players to feel "protected", that is just silly. I am sure to a player, they feel many times worse about the lost opportunity to gain ground on the Cubs than they feel good about Yost popping players for them.

maybe it'll send a message to the biggest dink in baseball, Tony LaRussa, that we don't lay down for anyone I think the only message it sent to LaRussa was that if Yost is still managing next year, he is low-hanging fruit and easy wins.

Shouse was a fluke who is coming back down to earth I think Shouse has been very consistent -- if you look at what he is supposed to do -- Get LHers out. Shouse is a baby seal clubbing waiting to happen if you leave him in to pitch to RHers. To his credit, he probably has pitched better than expected in unfavorable situations. You keep a guy like Shouse on your roster to pitch to the Bonds, Dunn, Jr., etc. in the league -- you don't have him on your roster to "pitch the 8th inning". "Coming back to earth" is really more a function of Shouse getting yosted a lot towards then end of the year.

A couple of thoughts... 1.) I think some of Vargas/Cappy/Bush may be added to the pen, which would make the outlook a little more cheery. 2.) I think SD knew more about Thatcher than we did, we keep harping about Inman, but SD seemed more interested in Thatcher from Day 1. 3.) If Yost is in fact back in 2008, it really doesn't matter, he could use 8 pitchers and not one of them being the best reliever in a one run game.

Doug Melvin

If Ned can start learning and being more adaptive during the year He has been the manager for 5 years, isn't it a bit late to start learning? -- and why not just hire someone who has learned these lessons?

Even though I've moved into the Nay camp, Glad to have you aboard -- you will get your welcome kit, and refrigerator magnet in the mail in 4 to 6 weeks. Mark's given Ned two votes of confidence this season. I'd like to think these have more credibility than most votes of confidence. I tend to agree with you Casey -- I don't think MA would give a VOC a week before the end of the season, knowing he may have to backtrack rather soon. I think that about the only thing that could possibly happen where Yost doesn't return, is if Mark A, steals Bob Melvin from the Dbacks because he wants to tell his friends that he hired the Melvins to run his team, because he is just that cool.

I was given a Reese's peanut butter cup of the miniature version, I tossed it in my mouth without taking the paper off the bottom. That was a mess.

little evidence for each of these as there is for it being Ned's fault. The way Ned handles his BP on the road is about as casual as you could get, and certainly HAS contributed to losses, given our best reliever doesn't get into some road games. Blaming a 15 point difference in batting average, 20 in on-base, and 40 in slugging solely on the way Ned manages seems just a little fallacious. Sure. No one has made a claim anything remotely close to this.

No matter what station I tune into on my XM Genesis/Phil Collins is on. They/he suck.

The thing is, I'm not convinced on the fact that this is Ned's fault. It's not Ned's fault exclusively -- the results though are pretty compelling. yet one is expected to believe that an uneven home/road record is the fault of the guy who fills out the lineup card and makes in-game substitutions? It may be the case, but I have yet to see any sort evidence supporting it. It is pretty common knowledge that Ned uses his bullpen/closer different on the road than at home. That could certainly account for more losses, I don't think that it is a stretch to then conclude he is managing other aspects of the game differently as well. If you are waiting evidence, as in something kicked out in spread-sheet format, we are both going to be in for a long wait. Meanwhile the bad results keep piling up. If we can't see the evidence, that usually is an indication of our limitations to extract or measure the data. I don't believe as our players get older, we should be waiting for evidence to materialize, sometimes results have to be enough.

Well -- If I picked Fielder or Braun -- they would be walked probably, so there would be bases loaded. I would ask Ned, and then do the opposite. The last guy I would want up would be Menchkins. I think I like Hart.

My point is that it's not fair to act as though Ned is causally responsible for such things as home/road record and first/second half record when it's something that's been present before he was even around. Bad managing and incompetency were present before Ned was hired as well, maybe he caught something on the bathroom doorknob? I don't see your point. The fact remains Ned has performed poorly on the road and in the second half of the season. If you look at any franchise with a history of futility, you will see a string of bad management/players -- its the predominant string.

They should really just rename it the "Manager of the Most Surprising Team of the Year." Yep -- I agree 100% -- guys like Francona and Torre are disqualified from Day 1

I think when put side by side, its easy to see that Weeks is much less of a liability in the feild compared to Braun. Errors are a bad/incomplete way to look at this, especially when comparing players at different positions. Braun is the worst fielding 3b in the NL, and Weeks is probably in the bottom two or three 2bs. Clearly Counsell is better than both. However Yost needs to look at the probability a ball will be hit to each position, depending on the hitters and consider the need for DPs, etc. removing Weeks instead of Braun may be a better strategic decision, esp. if you could use a hit which Braun is much more likely to deliver. I think the defensive subbing has gotten out of hand, and Yost has fallen into his routine where in EVERY Xth inning Braun gets taken out, w/o much thought to the scenario. I think that there are scenarios in which Braun should come out, -- I think there are scenarios he should stay in, as his bat will be needed, -- and I think there are scenarios where you could take out Weeks and improve the D, and not take such a hit offensively.

Everyone bashes Yost but why doesn't anyone ever bash Mike Maddux or any of the bench coaches? There's a reason why they have 3 coaches in the dugout, they talk about the decisions game-wise its just not Yost. Yost's coaches are his responsibility. They take their lead from Yost. If someone can show me a manager that hasn't made a bad move, I'll give them a cookie or something. This is a silly argument. This would be like saying "Show me a pitcher that hasn't given up a HR" -- we are discussing the degree of the mistakes, and just because there isn't a perfect manager, is irrelevant to whether Yost is good or bad. Anyone who thinks Yost had something to do with this loss is over managing the game. I think everyone recognizes that Yost was not Goat #1 on Sat. However, CoCo's screwup is pretty cut and dry. He gave up a HR. That sucked, and that pretty much wrapped up talking about CoCo. Yost's mistakes is much more subjective, and the volume of discussion should not be an measurement of his culpability, rather the subjective nature of Yost's impact. It still bothers me he takes Braun out of EVERY game, and doesn't consider taking Weeks oout.

Terrible fielding by Rickie, anyone? Yeah Weeks is a bad defender -- why does Yost replace Braun every single game but doesn't think to replace Weeks? I'd rather have Braun's bat than Weeks. It has been said many times in this thread and the IGT, Yost is not culprit #1 today, but he sure doesn't do anything to help our effort.

The September success is not a surprise at all, as the Crew's depth is very good. I think the biggest contribution to the Sep. success has been the ballsy starts of Villy/Yo and a couple of good Suppan/Bush starts, coupled with some baby-seal outings by guys like Albers and Dumright -- not the depth Their 26th-30th best is probably among the top 5 in the game, so they have helped more. I am sure Counsell and Dillon have helped our team, but that does not mean Dillon should be starting in RF and Counsell should not be leading off because Weeks had an 0-8. I agree with the original poster -- if our "depth" is used to PH, PR, and D-sub, super, if our "depth" is making their first start in RF, that is silly. I'm not going to base my feelings on things out of control, such as how the Cubs do I am not sure what your feelings have to do with the price of tea in China, and why anyone should care about them. Yost's job is to get more wins than the Cubs, currently he is behind, and he needs to be aware of that. Certainly a team like the Angels is going to be managed differently than a team like the Red Sox because of their relation to their 2nd place rival. The point of this thread, is more about starting your best players to maximize your wins and not leave wins on the table, regardless if you have a .632 pct in Sep. To use a FB analogy, it would be like being happy with a team that lost a close game in the 4th Q., that had a 6+ yards/carry average in the 4th Q., but ran out of time. I am glad the Brewers have depth, but at this point in the season I don't want to see the depth starting, I want to see the best players starting. I want to see Yost in sprint mode not marathon mode.

Yes and I would argue that it has worked rather well in September. The Brewers are 12-7 so far in Sept. Give credit where credit is due 12-7 Is decent -- but here is the thing -- since Sept. 1 we have gained no ground on the Cubs, so clearly 12-7 is not good enough. At this point in the season we cannot pick an arbitrary benchmark like .500 and declare anything above that "rather well". We entered Sep. 1.5 GB the Cubs, so for Sep. to be a success we need to be "Cubs+1.5". When Yost is in a sprint with the Cubs and starts Dillon in RF, and leads off Counsell because someone went 0-8, I would say that is troubling. Treading water is no longer an option, time to sink or swim

Can anyone in Milwaukee or even Wisconsin tell me if Yost is an actual issue there in the papers or on TV (I assume he's getting murdered on radio)? If I have to drive to the bank during the weekday afternoons I listen to the Homer show. He defends Yost to the death, and if the Brewers win, he brings the "Is Yost so stupid now" babbling to the table.

You meant that Fielder's defense has cost the brewers 2 wins not 2 runs correct? According to this metric -- (roughly speaking) Yes, 2wins. My question is what is the solution to this problem? We aren't going to trade Fielder, Braun or Weeks are we? I hope not -- there are a few solutions (potential) -- Move Braun to LF for one would help out. They are all young players hopefully they can improve -- Braun and Prince have consistently produced more offense than their defensive WOAHS, but when a guy like Weeks struggles at the plate, it has a pretty bad effect, the other solution would be to get our pitchers to get way more Ks and less pesky GBs for our fielders to deal with http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I wonder if Melvin and Yost even take this stuff into consideration when putting a roster together? I hope so -- Yost I am sure is looking at a menu, a poptart wrapper or something entirely unrelated. I think Melvin's philosophy is to bank on the "kids improving". I would rather acknowledge they are bad fielders, and shift them around to minimize their exposure. I think Prince's WOAHS are sort of compounded as well. He is never going to be Derrek Lee, but he doesn't help his IF out very much digging out throws. However, if he gets better throws, then everybody improves. Is it possible to win with a defense this bad? It seems like the Brewers are going to be over .500 so yes, however, it certainly is a bugaboo that is keeping us out of the playoffs. My guess is it is but we would have to hit like the 27 Yankees or have a staff full of high strikeout low walk pitchers....not exactly easy to find. I am 100% onboard with this sol'n. Man this is depressing. Well -- I don't think the point is to start depressing people -- but I think what may happen is people will start to blame guys like Bush/Suppan/Vargas for our WOAHS, and then some other pitchers are inserted into the rotation, and then they mystically "underperform" like their predecessors. Suppan pitched well last night -- he still got tagged with some ER's that he shouldn't have gotten. Our pitchers are not super or anything, but our D is not helping any of them out at all.

How does -49 translate into 5-7 more losses then average? -49 is (Runs above average) -- which means an average player (or team) would save the Brewers 49 runs, and basically 8-10 runs equals a win, so depending on how close your games are 49 runs will mean a net loss of 5-7 games. What does Fielders -17 actually mean? It means he gives up 17 more runs than an average fielding 1b. -- so Fielder by himself has cost the Brewers ~2 runs on the field. Only thing I want to point out here is that BP's fielding stats (FRAA) are generally regarded by most SABR types as the least reliable of the advanced fielding metrics. Agreed -- however, I think they are applicable in broad strokes, sort of like our grading system in schools -- We can say A>B when in reality the difference may be 89.5 vs. 89.4, but A>F. It doesn't matter if the A is a 89.5 or a 99.9, or if the F is a 59.4 or a 0.0. That is to say -- we are not debating the shades of good or bad, rather, one is good and the other is bad. I think when the smoke clears, you will be able to see with fielding metrics, and probably some pitching metrics that we left a non-trivial amount of games on the table because of shoddy glovework.

To help give a little more depth (FRAA) -- WARP Brewers -43 53.1 Cubs 34 54.6 Cards -4 43.5 Pirates 6 41.5 Nationals 17 39.2 Astros -31 42.6 Marlins -50 46.8 Reds -18 45.7 Padres -7 56.7 Dbacks -5 49.6 Mets 22 61.8 Rockies 63 55.2 If you look at our WARP, you can see the Brewers and Cubs are pretty close, with the Cubs a little ahead -- which is about right. The difference is, is that we are playing bottom-feeder defense. Even if we can get to average (0) it should be clear that we would have a few more wins than the Cubs right about now. The defense that Lee and Ramirez bring to the game, make them better players than Fielder and Braun.

the brewers are not fickle with position changes...i think that is well established...i see no reason why they would move braun off of 3b any quicker than they moved weeks off of 2b If you are telling me that the Brewers are going to be stubborn -- I would agree that it is unlikely that the optimal situation will happen. Weeks isn't a gold glove caliber defender, but he's improved enough to be serviceable at 2nd - and as we're seeing lately, when he's healthy his bat more than makes up for his defensive shortcomings. Weeks is FAR from serviceable. He is among the worst defenders in the NL. Granted he has been hitting the ball better, but he has to hit among the best 2bs in baseball to make up for his defense. I know in other threads I have come down hard on Weeks, but what is really concerning me, is the lack of defense on 3 of our 4 IF spots. Braun's defense is a win below replacement level. To help give this more depth, if you had a team of players who were all at the same talent level, but were so bad they won about 25 games in a 162 game schedule, Braun would be fielding worst than the 3rd baseman on the team that wins 25 games. Our horrible defense has been incredibly understated this season. Plays like Dillon's last night (errors that don't get recorded as such), happen every night to the Brewers and cost us wins. It seems to me, we could easily improve our team D by shifting Hall to 3b, Braun to LF and Hart to CF, and then perhaps the Brewers could lead Yost to the playoffs.