MLB

Why everyone (especially Pedro) hates Ned Yost

Pedro Martinez could not even wait until the narration of the highlights was complete on the TBS post-game show to begin his decimation of Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost, whose team had just won — yes, won — a heart-racing wild-card playoff game over the Oakland A’s.

If the Royals had lost, Pedro concluded, Yost would have been the “ugly goat.”

This is the kind of criticism Yost routinely inspires, on Twitter and off, among the baseball punditry and from regular KC Joes, over his bullpen mangling and bunt loving.

Specifically at issue on Tuesday night was a sixth-inning pitching change from ace James Shields (at just 88 pitches) to 100-mph rookie Yordano Ventura, a starter during the regular season (including Sunday!) who is unaccustomed to entering games with men on base.

Also available to face left-handed Brandon Moss were a pair of lefties: Brandon Finnegan and Danny Duffy. Ventura surrendered a three-run homer to turn a 3-2 Royals lead into a 5-3 deficit.

“We had the decision there between Ventura, Finnegan and Duffy,” Yost said. “All three young guys. Ventura came into a game earlier this year and actually won it for us by throwing an inning‑and‑two‑thirds of relief. He was lights‑out, and we got to that point where we just wanted to bring the gas. We wanted to bring the gas for the sixth … and it just didn’t work out.”

In addition to a totally flubbed double-steal call in the first inning, there’s Yost’s fascination with the sacrifice bunt, which has been pretty thoroughly debunked by the sabermetric community as poor strategy in almost all cases.

Here’s how the Royals’ four “successful” sacrifices adversely affected their probability of winning the game, according to the win expectancy metric on Baseball Reference.

Bottom 3, down 2-1, runner on first, nobody out: 48 percent to 45 percent

Bottom 9, down 7-6, runner on first, nobody out: 33 percent to 28 percent

Bottom 10, tied 7-7, runner on first, nobody out: 71 percent to 70 percent

Bottom 11, tied 7-7, runner on first, nobody out: 71 percent to 70 percent

All this is how we end up with an underdog team America wants to love and an all-the-wrong-buttons manager it can’t help but hate.