The Time has Come

Ned has got to go.

In saying this I realize that the majority of the current problems are out of his control.

• Prince's inability to hit for power, or hit any pitch on the outside half of the plate
• Braun's complete lack of plate discipline
• Hart's absence of power
• Hall's.......well you could say a lot of things. I'll just say "inability to hit"
• Hardy and Weeks' embarrassingly low averages
• Gagne
• (insert pitcher here)'s ability to work past the 5th or 6th

I could obviously go on.

I found myself defending Yost a lot over the past couple years. I felt that a lot of Milwaukee baseball fans were too quick to blame the manager for everything. I've thought (and still do to a point) that Brewer fans overestimate the ability of some of the younger players. I thought it was almost lazy of Brewer fans to blame Yost instead of actually looking deeper into the problems of this team.

I've understood that Yost can't make the bullpen pitch well. He can't force the pitching staff to get through the 6th. Was he ever a "great" manager? Probably not, but he was never the chief problem with this team.

However, the time has come for a change, and it might not even be Yost's fault. If this is just the case of Yost taking the heat for 25 guys not doing their job....well than that is what needs to happen. Lets face it, as much as we'd like to replace Hall/Weeks/Hardy/etc. with some players who can actually hit - its not going to be done this year.

I don't want to put Yost down too much - I appreciate what he has done with this franchise the past few years, but lets face it, the Brewers wouldn't be letting go of a coaching legend, or even an established manager with a track record for success. This isn't like if the Cubs fired Pinella. After six years, Yost is still an unproven manager in the major leagues.

At this point, I don't see how replacing Yost as manager could hurt the Brewer's 2008 chances. I'm assuming that this order will need to come from Mark A. as I don't see Melving making a move. Lets hope that Mark A's perspective (and money) is the one that wins out in the next few weeks.