I gave up on Ned Yost a year ago. Unfortunately, Mark Attanasio didn't until today.
Firing a manager of a team that is 16 games over .500, on Sept. 15, and technically is still eligible for the playoffs (right now, anyway) is weird. Listening to Doug Melvin, he thinks so, too. The way he speaks of the firing is in the passive tense, and it indicates that the decision wasn't his own.
"I'm not sure (this decision) was the right one," said a sniffely Melvin in the opening minutes of his news conference.
But maybe, this decision might be a stroke of genius.
I spoke with someone close to the team today, and that source offered me two pieces of information -- one surprising, one not.
The unsurprising insight was that Yost had lost respect from everyone within the organization, from players to coaches to the front office. No one will say it publicly, but privately they couldn't stand his hand-wringing, adamant excuses and defensive answers; the stuff fans and media hated to hear.
The surprising insight was how the firing positions the team for next year. If the Brewers failed to make the playoffs, and management waited until the end of the season to fire Yost -- which would've surely happened -- there would be no downside to making this move now. If, however, the Brewers backed into to the post-season, and even if they got swept in the first round, they couldn't get rid of Yost, even if they wanted to.
In other words, the team now has the flexibility to see if Dale Sveum can pull a rabbit out of his hat. And if not, they are no worse for the wear -- as the front office has already lost faith in Yost and didn't want him back.
We'll see how it turns out. You can't fire the players. Managers are scapegoats, to be sure. But Yost also managed like a robot, and if they didn't matter at all, then baseball wouldn't use them, either.
This could've been much easier for everyone if Yost was fired before the season began. But that's said and done. If Sveum can save this season, with Robin Yount back as the bench coach, then Melvin will once again prove his genius.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
