Yosted

Baseball fans picture a team for me. This team has two aces, two young solid starting pitchers and a veteran pitcher with a decade plus of experience and postseason success. This team has a veteran bullpen with four different pitchers with closing experience and a shutdown left handed specialist. This team has a lineup with power and speed. Sounds like a championship caliber ball club right? One catch--that team is managed by a mental midget.

That man is Ned Yost. Who still after more then four years of managing at the major league level and before that working under Bobby Cox for twelve years can't figure out how to manage a pitching staff.

The game which just finished is a prime example. Brewers scored 2 runs in the top of the tenth inning to take a 3-1 lead over the Reds. Eric Gagne had pitched the previous three days. Three days is pushing it enough, but Ned thinks it wise to send him out there for the fourth straight day. The Milwaukee Brewers at this very moment are carrying fourteen pitchers. Yes fourteen! Torres has closing experience, Turnbow has closing experience, and David Riske has a little closing experience (closed the first game of the year after Gagne blew the save an inning earlier). Now even to the average baseball fan this adds up to a situation that where you give Gagne a day off and go with another one of your the pitchers from what has been a good bullpen so far this year.

This doesn't dawn on Ned Yost however. Over sixteen years as a coach at the major league level and he can't figure this out. This is just one example of his many mistake over the years during his management of the Brewers.

This is why I can't get to high on the Brewers this season. I know that in many games this year the players will have to overcome the decisions of their manager. I know in many games this year players will be put in positions where they will likely fail. The most frustrating part of this is that teams in markets like Milwaukee don't have large windows to have postseason success and it is nothing but a waste to have Ned Yost managing this team at this time.