I know the titles of my posts haven't been too creative lately, but when you're so filled with angry, creativity is not your strong suit. Today I was relaxing after another long day watching the ball game. For a change the Brewers aren't looking too bad (knock on wood) and are up 5-3 right now. At some point during the game amongst all the nonsense the announcers where talking about they were talking about intentionally walks. (Twice the Braves intentionally walked someone to face the pitcher instead, and both times they got out of the inning.) They mentioned that for the 3rd year in a row the Braves lead the league in intentional walks and for the third year the Brewers are last. This got me thinking...
The Braves are always competitive no matter the talent level on the team, the Brewers always struggle no matter the talent level on the team. I'm not saying that intentionally walking players leads to more victories (The Rockies are second in intentional walks and they are awful.) I am stating that by using intentional walks it shows us that the manager is actually involved in the game and is making real-time decisions instead of following a pre-set plan. Yost pitches the same if ALbert Pujols is batting with the bases loaded or Greg Maddux is batting with no one on. There are no real-time decisions like "hey we should walk Pujols to face Chris Carpenter, I think Pujols is a little more likely to get a hit." Yost just says, "Whoever is at bat (I can't read) just throw a fastball straight down the line and keep your fingers crossed."
Let me say that Yost is a joke of a manager in my book. I believe that instead of making decisions within the game depending on what is happening, Yost "pre-writes" the game and makes decisions on how he designed the game before it even began. For example if a pitcher is throwing a one-hitter, he pull them when they get to 90 pitches, because that is the design. If there is a man on second with no outs and the #4 hitter coming up; instead bunting he will have the hitter swing for a homer because he's the #4 hitter (this has happened at least 5 times this year.) Hint to Yost, watch the game you are managing and make decisions about what is actually happening. Take a lesson from your former Mentor, Cox, and occasionally walk someone to get to a far worse hitter.
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He seems to not know what a solid manager does. Baseball was not about statistics before it was about situational managerial decisions, most often carried out by a player on the field no less. Money Ball is great and does work. But making decisions based on situations and not numbers is what makes a manager great. For example, see the Oakland A's playoff record in the 2000s
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