The Milwaukee Brewers fired Ned Yost today, according to ESPN.com.
The Brewers were just swept by the Philadelphia Phillies, dropping them into a tie with the Phillies in the NL Wild Card race. The Brewers have lost 11 of their last 14 games, allowing many teams to climb back into the playoff hunt.
This makes me wonder, what would Tony LaRussa have to do to get fired? I’m not saying that I wish termination on TLR, but more out of curiosity – what do you think would legitimately give Cardinals’ brass a reason to fire Tony? Does he have immunity, regardless of the team’s performance? Is it even John Mozeliak’s decision, or would that one have to come from Bill DeWitt himself?
Give me your thoughts in the comments section…
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My humble opinion–Tony walks on water for the DeWitt family and the Cardinals’ front office. Besides the fact that even his bad decisions turn out well in the end, I think he has a free pass for as long as he cares to use it. In Tony’s defense, he would never give himself one. He wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he gave it any less than he had.
I generally agree with your sentiments, and wonder just how much pull he holds with Billy D.
Are we in for the LaRussa Era as GM once he decides to give up managing?
Now THAT would be interesting. A uniform-wearing GM who won’t stay out of the dugout.
But seriously, if you take a look around the majors, how many managers have his kind of success? I know a lot of people don’t agree with his style, but it’s hard to argue with the results. I’ve learned to just assume he knows what he’s talking about. Maybe that’s what we need in a GM. (I’m not loving Moze. Especially considering how prickly he is with the media.)
Oh sure – TLR should get (almost) every accolade he receives. He is a great manager, and he is certainly getting maximum effort out of this season’s team.
That said, I would shudder at the idea of him as a GM. Can’t you just picture 8 Mike Gallego’s lining up with a pitching staff full of Tony Fossas’ on the mound? Yikes!
You’ll be singing a different tune about Mo after this off-season. Book it.
I think it would take an outright major scandal of some sort that directly impacted the Cardinals organizition in order for Tony to be fired. Even then I’m sure they’d find a way for him to ‘step down’.
Tony as a GM, don’t think he’d like that. He is so much into playing (managing) the game that behind the scenes bickering about the value of a player doesn’t seem like something he’d enjoy.
I think Tony will be the Cardinal manager for as long as he wants to be, and no, I don’t think Mozeliak would have much if any say in it. Whether Tony stays or leaves though could have to do with Mozeliak’s (via the budget and direction he is given from above) ability to get players next year that Tony wants to manage. LaRussa seemed content this year to start the season with what he had and said the Cards would be competitive despite what all the Pundits (myself included) predicted as a bad year.
As far as Yost’s firing, that is nothing short of shocking to me. They are right in the midst of the playoff hunt so they fire the manager now? Makes no sense whatsoever to me unless there was some kind of confrontation or something we don’t know about. Hard to blame Yost for Braun’s lack of hitting lately etc.
Yep, long story short, Tony isn’t going anywhere until Tony wants to.
I could see him taking a GM job, lasting about two seasons, and then getting hacked off and quitting because the owners are “too cheap” or meddling too much with what he wants to do. He’s just a control guy like that.
I think this off-season will be a big one for Mozeliak in a lot of ways. He’s got a lot to do personnel-wise, but he’s also got to sell himself to both the fans and LaRussa I think. Remains to be seen just how big of an ownership and/or LaRussa pawn Johnny Mo is.
I think something had to give in Milwaukee – my position has been, and continues to be this:
Melvin is in hot water to begin with, especially after taking a lot of the blame on himself with yesterday’s firing. So canning Yost puts him in the position of either a) making the playoffs, and then Yost was the problem or b) still missing the playoffs, but it was Yost’s fault for putting them in the position to fall out.
Either way, Melvin had to take a shot. We’ll see if the players respond.
Especially last year, but probably this year as well, I saw Yost as one of those hands-off kind of managers. His players seemed to be out of control, and he was so laid back that you had to wonder what exactly it would take to get him riled up. I guess if you look at it that way, nothing was his fault because he took absolutely no interest in what was going on in his own clubhouse.
I’d be surprised if the Brewers win another game this season.
That sounds too harsh now that I’m seeing it “out loud” so I’ll immediately revise my statement to: I’d be surprised if the Brewers put together any more back-to-back wins this year.
Well, it’s hard to say Sarah – by all accounts, the players really like Ned. Of course, that may be because he let them get away with doing all sorts of ridiculous stuff that he shouldn’t have (read: pulling jersey tails out after a win). It will certainly be interesting to see how they react. Like StLCards said, Yost wasn’t the one causing Braun and Fielder to not hit much lately.
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