LMAO

surely he won't be doing THAT again.

Mods please change to an appreciation thread

This. For God's sake, give the man some love.

So if Ned Yost is so bad that we would never win with him, because managers have that much impact on the game to some of you, will some of you now consider him a good manager or will you give the players credit for winning?

This man is unstoppable in the playoffs! Who knew?

Aside from the Ventura for Shields move in the Oakland game I think he has really done well in the playoffs

Who knew what would happen when players started playing to their potential!!!

good thing Milwaukee fired him before the playoffs...

JFC, Ventura threw 3 pitches in that game. Don't be an idiot.

Solid take.

Ned quit being Ned. Finally quite putting Infante at 2 because he can bunt. Ned finally got a quick hook for the starters instead of waiting until the blow up or blow the lead, he also got away from only pitching guys in certain innings. He's been very good outside the Ventura mess.

It's so damn stupid, but people cling to all sorts of baseball myths. The main one being this very thread itself

Every baseball manager and every football coach makes thousands of decisions, and it's impossible for every decision to work. But it's ridiculously easy for people to jump on the Internet and bash the guy who makes the decisions.

Some of the people on this site would crucify Vince Lombardi if he were coaching their football team, and they'd lynch Whitey Herzog if he were managing their baseball team.

Ned Yost is obviously a ****ing genius when it comes to developing young players into productive players, and he is obviously a ****ing genius at managing a bullpen. It helped that the 3 guys he put into his 7-8-9 rotation turned out to be superhumans, but he helped make them that way.

He got this team to the World Series. They didn't get there on their own, "in spite of him".

Ned Yost is what his record says he is. Right now he's the first manager in history to win his first 8 postseason games.

As Nathan hale once said "I only regret that I only have but one rep to give for this post"


Jeez I just broke out Nathan Hale

Benedick Arnold planet.

:LOL:

All you Youst haters should be watching our dumbass manager tonight. It will make you feel good about your manager.

For those who think the Ned of the last few weeks was the Ned we were critical of, you're nuts.

That being said, the current Ned is awesome. He made a mistake in the WC game, the players bailed him out (thank God), and since then he's been very level-headed.

THAT I will admit to.. I hope he stays the new Ned...

Exactly. It's almost if after the Ventura debacle Yost became a different guy. I wonder if DM or someone else is actually calling the shots now.

This is not true. I singlehandedly ruined Todd Marinovich's career.

Regardless of what happens in this series.

REGARDLESS.

I no longer hate Ned Yost.

That a boy!

I had to accept that my manager (bochy) does shit during the regular season that make new want to destroy shit on a daily basis, but he gives me nothing to complain about when it matters.

Since the Wildcard game where he nearly killed me he's pulled all the right strings. Kudos to Ned.

If the Royals win this next one, at worst, Ned is 12-3 postseason w a title. That'll get HOF consideration even if he retired afterwards. This thread should be nuked. Ned rules!!

The man could still break hearts, for now his crazy is in remission. He seems to stay steady when we have series leads, no panic play. Here's to keeping leads...

Ned doesn't always do what Joe Fan would do. that's because your average message board denizen or sports radio caller would never bunt and just wait for home runs. He manages the team according to what they can do and what the game situation calls for. He's a throwback to a bygone era where you more often played for one run and you found ways to move runners over without having to get 3 or 4 straight hits to score a couple.

You don't get to the World Series by accident.

Two words..Ron Washington.

Something about being on the threshold of being murdered before you can reach the parking lot makes a dude re-evaluate things, and finally muster up the strength to wrench his head free from his ass.

These guys were down what, 7-3 in the bottom of the 8th with their ultimate nemesis, John Lester on the mound?

Its a miracle comeback that saved Yost's job and his life. No way he would have remained the manager had they lost. Too much at stake, emotions WAY too high, and honestly it was probably the dumbest thing any baseball fan in general saw all year to that point.

smile fellas! Its the Yost Season!!

Is this how you say "I told you so?"

Someone needs to start one of these threads, like yesterday, about Dorsey/Reid...

Just because Ned Yost didn't negatively impact the game as often as he did in the regular season does not mean he positively impacted the game an equal amount resulting in the win. That is a logical fallacy. It is significantly easier to negatively affect the outcome of a game than to positively affect the outcome.

All of that said, Ned Yost did a significantly better job of managing the pen, save for the Ventura fiasco, in the playoffs. Going to Kelvin for an 1 2/3 innings was a great move.

There are things about Ned Yost that drive me nuts. There are things about him that make me think he's a below-average manager tactically.

But damn, he certainly has shown he can make his team believe and come together in a way that maybe overcomes some of those tactical shortcomings.

And I'll give him major credit for this... unlike a lot of managers, he has shown in this postseason that he will only make a mistake 1 time.

The way he handled the bullpen in the wildcard game nearly cost the team everything. And he learned from those mistakes and completely reversed some of his strategies.

Good point. My point is that I think the Ventura deal in the WC game did something. It's like we were hitting on 7 cylinders, hit a bump that moved the plug wire back in place and now were hitting on all 8. That's a good thing, and we're winning because of good moves at the right time (Ned's job), good pitching, ****ing crazy-awesome defense behind that pitching, and hitting that working as well as it has all year. Oh, and speed that kills!

So I'm very OK with the new Ned, but I'll also be quick to remind him of how messing around with a great recipe is not advisable (if he does).

We have four games to go, FOUR... Ride the players like they're about to get a long break, know that some will be ripe for other teams to try to steal (in some way), and live for the moment. Lord knows with Ebola there might not be a next year, so he needs to be all-in for each win, but only "not stupid with a players health" when it might affect the winning of the game, not the career.

He's got to ride the line of "controlled reckless abandon" - and THAT'S why he's a millionaire, because he's supposed to know where that line is. If a pitcher in game 55 is only good for 6 inning and/or 90 pitches, he may need to consider 115 pitches if there's no loss of movement or velocity (depending on the pitcher's poison is) in the kid's throws.

IOW, it's time to play with a bloody and bleeding ankle as long as doing so doesn't mean the next player in line wouldn't have been more capable of doing the job.

What has he had to do with the bullpen that isn't common sense? He's had good starting pitching that can get him five or six, and once he's through the six inning his next three pitchers are unhittable (and on top of that Frasor has been lights out).

I don't think Yost has anything to do with making that team believe. Lorenzo Cain isn't making circus catches because of Ned Yost; he's a great defensive CF. Moustakas and Hosmer haven't had a power surge because of Yost, either.

If Ron Washington can go to two World Series, and Mike Matheny one, any ****ing idiot can do it, especially one with the best end-of-game bullpen any of us have ever seen.

Nothing has changed

Yost is a great Clubhouse guy and a very mediocre in-game guy.


we just have to hope that we continue to win 'on script' so Yost doesn't have to make many decisions.

Cain's bunt in the 1st had a winProbAdd of.....0%. It was a neutral event. Lets examine that further: we can obv assume an out would be negative and a hit, positive. Since Cain hits .301 you can assume he had a 30% chance of adding more value than the bunt.


So statistically it was the right call.

Cain said in his post game that the bunt was his call.

I know a lot of people weren't happy about the bunt, but think about it this way. If he doesn't bunt, we don't get two runs out of that circus play.

I'll give him credit for being able to have this team stick together and never quit no matter what.

But he's a horrible in-game manager. Defeating 3 teams by winning 8 straight games in the playoffs, making a trip to the WS doesn't change that fact. He will still do shit that will want to make you pull our your hair and throw shit at the TV.

Posnanksi had a pretty good article on Ned a few days ago -- Better Off Ned. (Has some weird formatting so I've linked it instead of copying-and-pasting)

You know one would think this is self evident however people like Pete constantly whine and complain about what doesn't work. Sometimes shit doesn't work. Even Andy I haven't been real critical of because Alex just can't do what should be a easy play and make a conversion.

Do I disagree with Ned and Andy at times? Absolutely but my decisions would be mocked by the same group just as roundly.

Perhaps, rather than inventing narratives to explain what you're seeing, just look at the data:

The Royals' starters have pitched very well and their bullpen is unhittable. They're extremely hot right now, and that's why they're in the World Series. There isn't any other alchemy to it.

Are you ****ing kidding? Have you not been watching for the last two seasons? He built 3 closers, one for each of the last 3 innings. I'm not aware of any manager ever doing that before.

Early last year he used to drive me crazy when he would insist on yanking a reliever who had just pitched one effective inning. I constantly yelled at the TV and said "God damn it Ned, if you keep changing pitchers, you'll eventually find one who can't get anybody out!".

But it turns out that he was right and I was wrong. Ned's great strength is developing young players, and that strategy wound up building possibly the best bullpen EVER. EVER. Yes, it helps that Herrerra, Davis and Holland all turned into superhumans, but he helped develop them into that. You sure as hell can't claim the roles he put them in had NOTHING to do with that. What did Wade Davis look like last year as a starter? Kelvin Herrera had a horrible stretch a couple of years ago and again early last year, but Yost insisted upon trusting him with the 7th inning. Kelvin learned his role, and he thrived. Just like Davis. Just like Holland.

And Ned has to be given some credit for the Greinke trade that turned out so well. Don't you think he was in Dayton Moore's ear saying "We have to get Cain and Escobar"? He coached those guys for years in Milwaukee. He knew them.

Now I'm not going to try to say Yost is a tactical genius. He clearly isn't. He clearly made some horrible blunders along the way. As far as that goes, so did Dayton Moore. We were all calling for DM's head when he insisted on bringing in guys like Yuniesky Betancourt, Jose Guillen, and Mike Jacobs. Those guys were busts and those moves were failures.

The thing is that Dayton Moore learned from his mistakes and got better at his job. Ned Yost has learned from HIS mistakes and got better at his job.

This team just swept the Angels and the Orioles, and it's in the ****ing World Series. How anyone can be anything other than deliriously happy with the job those two men have done is beyond me.

I'm starting to think this team could win 3 World Series in a row, and some people around here would STILL find things to bitch about.

Awesome rant

He's changed his use patterns with Herrera and Davis AND his starters in general.

He had a quick hook on both Guthrie and Vargas the past two days, for example. In the past, even in an elimination game, he would have let Guthrie pitch the 6th and face Jones/Cruz/Pearce again. On Tuesday, he pulled him.

That was a major factor in sweeping the Orioles.

The aggressive use of Herrera and Davis - taking them outside their usual one-inning stints and being willing to ask them to get 5 or 6 outs - also has been a big factor in this series. He wasn't willing to do that in the season or even in the wildcard game, and it nearly cost KC first a playoff berth and then the wildcard game.

The Royals did not get great starts from Shields or Ventura in this series. Yost pushed the right buttons with his pen to cover up for that.

I was in the clubhouse last night after the game and talked to a few of the guys. Those guys love playing together and love playing for Yost and KNOW that their teammates are going to pick them up when they need it.

Where it comes out on the field, I think, is in a team that plays with extreme confidence.

I'm not saying he's suddenly a HoF guy or anything, but I do have to give him credit for learning from his mistakes and NOT repeating them and for building a team chemistry that is succeeding.

Well said!

Have you looked at that data, though?

Neither Shields nor Ventura is having a great playoff season. Shields has actually been pretty shitty. Danny Duffy hasn't made a start because he's out of gas and his mechanics are shot right now.

Vargas and Guthrie pitched well the past two games, but even just handing the ball to those guys was viewed as a questionable decision, and one of the reasons those guys were so effective was that Yost had such a quick hook on them.

It's pretty easy to figure it out, really. Even Ned should know this as any average baseball fan should know. When you have the lead in the 5th or 6th inning, against that Royals bullpen? That's like, playing Madden when the computer decides there's no way you're winning this game and everything goes against you.

And the best part about it? Everybody ****ing knew.

The Pos was a true homer but KC is much worse off for losing him...

Every manager, sans Grady Little, has a quick hook in the postseason. You're giving him credit for things that everyone does. Moreover, every manager extends their best relievers in the postseason.

He made a horrendous decision to bring in Ventura in the WC game. He hasn't done that again, which is a plus, but not making a horrible decision isn't much different than smiling and dialing.

Moreover, when you haven't played more than two consecutive days at any point, you can stretch your relievers for a multiple inning appearance because you aren't playing 16 straight games.

Finally, winning is a great deodorant. You give him credit for building team chemistry. Is that chemistry somehow different or less apparent if the A's score one more run in the WC game?

That's a post hoc rationalization.

Yeah, that's completely idiotic.

Every manager extends his pen in the PS.

Moreover, Herrera's peripherals this year were the worst of his career, yet Yost "built" him into a better pitcher? GTFO.

Greg Holland had better peripherals in 2013 than 2014--higher K-rate, lower walk rate,-lower xFIP, and one more WAR.

So, despite the fact that two of his three pitchers were actually better in 2013 than 2014, Yost gets credit for molding them.

If you want to give him credit for Wade Davis, that's fine. It's also stupid, because looking at Luke Hochevar and basically every reliever ever should tell you that starters who are moved to the bullpen will notice a massive improvement in their stats because they can blow their arm out for one or two innings and only see a lineup once a night.

Al Bundy hasn't posted in weeks. Wonder why. Troll

Overall, here's what I'd say:

A lot of people are giving Yost credit when the credit should really go to your FO and players. Yost has not ****ed things up for you, which has been huge, but he hasn't turned into Joe Maddon.

Wait, you're gonna tell me that winning is done by getting the right players and those players playing up to there potential? Holy shit, CP had me believing all year that it was all about the manager.

Your problem is that you've let some of Ned Yost's tactical decisions piss you off to the point that you're unwilling to concede that he ever does anything right. Surely you will concede that Ned Yost does a great job of developing players. If you refuse to acknowledge that point, then there's not a lot I can do for you. Further discussion would be as pointless as talking about minimum wage with Loneiguana. Some people take dogmatic positions and refuse to consider any new information.

But let's forget about Yost's ability to develop young players for a moment, and let's talk instead about what this team accomplished this year. This is a team where the leading power hitter had less than 20 home runs, the RBI leader drove in less than 75 runs, and the leading hitter just barely hit .300 and he did it with virtually no power. This is a team where the ace of the pitching staff won 14 games.

This is a team without stars, and yet this very averge team won the Wildcard game, swept the Angels, swept the Orioles, and is going to the World Series.

Have the players stepped up their games in the postseason? Of course they have. But to say that Ned Yost has nothing to do with this is beyond idiotic. It suggests that you made up your mind a long time ago and nothing will ever change it.

Trey Hillman, Bob Boone and buddy Bell could have managed this team to the World Series.

No, Trey Hillman would have blown out the arms of Ventura and Duffy and Shields while insisting that huge pitch counts don't matter, and Bob Boone would have used 162 different lineups.

Buddy Bell? Maybe.

This team is winning because of how relaxed and loose they play which is a characteristic of Yost. The players love this guy. How many of us wanted certain players benched for sucking for weeks on end. He never did it. They didn't have the accountability of a hard-ass manager and it's why late in the season they stayed loose, didn't press and kept believing in themselves.

And when you consider how long the season is, maybe that's not a bad attribute to have.

OK, after tonight's 6th inning ****-up, I'm back to hating him!

I hate to say it, but Yost might have just handed the championship to the Giants tonight. He is right back to being the laughingstock of baseball.

No shit, just dumb!

He went full tard tonight

What did he do tonight that was so dumb?

Not drink a gallon of antifreeze...

His pitchers were awful. Not sure what he can do about that

Yeah. He didn't pitch, or play defense. This one is not on him.

Dyson got on base on a single.

He pinch hit with Aoki on the pitcher's spot. Cool with me. I expected Aoki or Ned to tell Aoki to bunt it, to move Dyson into 2nd base, to have a RISP situation.

Nope.

Double play, gave SF all that momentum.

Game.

Yeah, a real head scratcher on that one. I think he managed scared tonight.

Ill admit, when Aoki got ahead I wanted him swinging at a FB. He got one, a meatball right in the center, and the little Rice Burner couldn't even do anything with it

To me his biggest mistakes of the night were to pitch Vargas one hitter too many. Not sure why he came back out as he was clearly struggling. His other one was the Aoki non bunt. That was a head scratcher. That style worked for us all season long, why abandon it there?

Didn't matter, nobody pitched

I thought Aoki would probably bunt there, but kind of ridiculous to blame a 11-4 loss on not bunting in the 6th. So if it works Dyson's at 2nd with 1 out.
And from there, you assume we would have won?

We'll never know.

Esky popped out after.

This is dumb

I thought maybe Moose might drop a bunt down after Hos opened with the lead off double to tack another one to make it 5-2. Who knows if it would have mattered, but another call that didn't work out our way. Usually a 5-2 lead with our pen is game over.

We've done that before, so I'm not sure why we wouldn't do it again. We didn't play exceptionally smart in the 5th and 6th innings

I wasn't as worried about sending him out there, I never thought it'd be a double, but the Aoki deal was his regression into stupidity!