Fire Ned Yost?

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

SS, last night you mentioned about how Brewers fans are starting to call for the head of manager Ned Yost, despite the fact that the team is having it's best year since 1992. Well, here's a pretty good analysis of a recent game, courtesy of Joe Sheehan of baseballprospectus.com. Just a note, when he refers to "leverage", he's talking about the pressure of the situation that the pitcher is facing. So, if a reliever comes into a game with a 1-run lead in the bottom of the 9th inning, on the road, bases loaded, nobody out, middle of the line-up coming up, that is a higher leverage situation than coming into the game down 10-0 in the 5th inning

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"Ned Yost can’t manage/can’t manage his bullpen" has been an ongoing theme in my inbox this year, just behind "you’re a moron" and just ahead of "you hate the Yankees." There’s a vocal subset of Brewers fans who believe that Yost, who is running the first contending Brewers team since 1992, has hamstrung the team with his personnel usage throughout the season, especially in how he's handling the bullpen. Last night’s game, as Jerod points out, was just the latest in a string of data points supporting the argument.

Cut to the game. For the first eight innings, there wasn’t much to complain about. Yost went first to Scott Linebrink, then Brian Shouse and Derrick Turnbow, trying to protect a one-run lead and then a tied game in the seventh and eighth innings. This is consistent with his usage patterns, and defensible based on the pitchers and their performances this season. Shouse would allow a baserunner, Yost would put another on by calling for an intentional pass, and then the oft-wild Turnbow would allow them to score. You could make an argument that Cordero should have been charged with the task of escaping the eighth inning rather than the control-challenged righty, but I wouldn’t devote a column to that decision.

No, it was what came after that earns Yost some deserved opprobrium. The Brewers tied the game on a Rickie Weeks’ two-run homer (Weeks, by the way, has been about the best player in the NL since his recall on August 10), right around the time the Cubs locked up their win over the Reds in Chicago. The Brewers would have to win this game to remain tied for first in the NL Central. It was, arguably, their most important game since October of 1992, when they were eliminated from the AL East race on the next-to-last day of the season.

To commemorate this moment, Ned Yost turned to Chris Spurling. Spurling is a 30-year-old righty with a career ERA of 4.31 in 213 innings. He’d been throwing mostly low-leverage relief for the Brewers this year, when not spending time in Triple-A. Spurling has the lowest Leverage score of any Brewers’ reliever with at least 20 innings pitched. In four appearances since his recall, he’d been used as someone to finish a game the Brewers were well out of. Since the All-Star break, Spurling had been brought into just four games in which the difference in score was fewer than three runs. He is, if not the last man in the bullpen, at least readily defined as a low-leverage replacement-level pitcher.

If I wanted to be generous, I might actually let Yost slide on this call. After all, the Astros would be sending up the bottom of their lineup in the ninth. I’ve written in the past that teams should pay more attention to this kind of consideration when choosing which relievers they use, generally in the context of eighth inning versus ninth inning. You could argue that Yost was trying to squeeze three outs out of his sixth reliever in a situation where he was likely to get them. As it turned out, Spurling needed to be rescued by rookie Mitch Stetter—another low-leverage reliever who was being asked to pitch in the highest high-pressure situation of his life—who came on to retire Josh Anderson and end the inning.

The Brewers went down 1-2-3 in the tenth. The Astros had the middle of their lineup due up in the bottom of the inning. At this point, Yost made a series of mistakes. With Lidge leading off the inning for the Astros, Yost could have sent Stetter to the mound, gotten Cecil Cooper to commit to a pinch-hitter, then made a change accordingly, gaining a platoon advantage or forcing Cooper to use multiple players. Instead, he double-switched Matt Wise into the game, which upgraded his outfield defense, but handed a tactical advantage to Cooper. The double-switch wasn’t the problem, but the timing was. It’s possible that Orlando Palmeiro would have been sent up regardless, at which point you could take the platoon advantage (Stetter is left-handed) and then keep the lefty in the game to face Lance Berkman, who has been a much worse hitter from the right side for his entire career. If Cooper sent up a right-handed batter instead of Palmeiro, he could still double-switch, or he could let Stetter face the righty—probably some non-threat like Eric Bruntlett—so that he would keep Berkman off of his good side. The risk is that you have slightly worse outfield defense for two batters. That’s a tradeoff you have to make.

The more obvious option is throwing out all the tactical concerns and just using your best pitcher. Francisco Cordero is the Brewers closer, and by far their best right-handed reliever. He hadn’t pitched since Sunday in Cincinnati, and in fact, had made just two appearances, throwing 44 pitches total, since September 8. Yost had his best reliever available, fully rested, in a game that his team had to win to keep pace, with the middle of the opponent’s lineup coming up, with a clean double-switch opportunity available to him that would allow him to use Cordero for two innings…and he instead went to Matt Wise.
Yeah, maybe Brewers fans are on to something.

Once the third out was made in the top of the tenth, Yost could have gone in a number of directions. He could have forced the Astros to pinch-hit without the platoon advantage. He could have forced the Astros to burn a player. He could have ensured that Berkman batted from his less-dangerous right side. He could have passed on all of that and just used his best reliever.

He did none of those things, instead allowing Palmeiro and Berkman to bat against Wise with the platoon advantage. A walk and a single later, the Astros had two runners on with no one out, and the game was essentially over. Yost was so married to the idea that the closer pitches in save situations only that he reduced his team’s chances of winning a game it absolutely had to have. If you can’t recognize that “tied in the tenth inning, other team’s best guys up, a half-game out of first place, 12 days left” is about the highest-leverage situation you’re going to come across, and act accordingly, it’s possible that you’re not the best person for your job.

Slimdust

I think to fire a manager, it has to be his fault. Not the teams. There is nothing a manager can do if simply the players arnt doing well. But if he makes bone head choices then thats when you make like trump fire his A hole.

PS3 Online Name: xJimmyx23

www.haulingkings.com

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

It's a good arguement and all. It's just, they aren't citing those reasons. Some of them are citing a "fallout" with Carlos Lee. And i hear all the time "If we hadn't traded Carlos Lee we'd have this division" :rollingeyes:

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Did he have a fall out with Lee? I dont really remember hearing about it at the time. Then again, we dont really hear much about the Brewers, especially not before this year...

I've always wondered about manager performance, and how you separate underperforming players and poor managing. Like, if the team is losing, is it because of the players or because of the managers. One thing I thought about doing was keeping track of all of Joe Torre's "moves" in the second half of the year, and seeing how many times I thought he screwed up, but it never came to be. Maybe next year...

Simon

Founder/Admin

Like when the Red Sox fired Grady Little.

He completely deserved it.

Fucker.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

I just heard that Yost is suspended for tonight's game for throwing at Albert Pujols, in retaliation for the Cards hitting Prince Fielder

2 games back with 4 to play, and dude is hurting his team's playoff chances because of some macho retaliation bullshit

I'm convinced...dude's gotta go

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

lol.. how about that whole Milton Bradley situation?

goof731

There was nothing wrong with throwing at Pujols. The fact that Yost was suspended was BS. They should have scored when they had the bases loaded earlier in the game and they couldn't get any outs later in the inning. Saying throwing at Pujols cost them the game is just wrong. Yost has cost the Brewers many games this year and probably should be fired.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

It's an automatic 1-game suspension for the manager when a hitter gets intentionally drilled with a pitch after both teams were warned. Yost knew this, and knew that he would have to sit out the next game, with only 3 more after that. Dont you think it's better for the team to have their manager than not have their manager, especially at such an important time of the season?

Not only that, but when he hit Pujols, it was the leadoff batter in the 8th inning of a 1-run game. St. Louis then went on to score four runs. Maybe they would have lost anyway, but who knows...maybe McClung throws a 1-2-3 inning and Milwaukee wins it in the 9th. A general rule of thumb is that putting the leadoff hitter on base in a 1-run game is a bad idea.

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

Well, Tom, maybe in Ned Yosts' case, it's better not to have the manager