Email Sent to Michael Hunt
This is a copy of the email I sent to Journal columnist Michael "No coach should ever be fired" Hunt regarding his Yost-defending column.Normally I wouldn't send an email to a columnist, but Hunt actually reads them and replies to them via his column. Plus, I thought his column was good in that it contained all of the usual tripe the Yost-Selig-Garner apologists usually toss out there. So, read his column first, then the response ...
Hello Mr. Hunt,
I like your column and read it regularly. I'll keep this short.
No, Yost should not be fired because Jenkins slumped his way through five months of baseball, ...he should be fired because he kept putting Jenkins in the starting lineup (even against lefties, and even in late innings!) while he slumped his way through five months of baseball.
And no, Yost should not be fired because Turnbow blew up, ...he should be fired because he continued to put Turnbow out there (ruining his psyche, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and ruining the effort of his other players) long after it was obvious to even casual fans that Turnbow has lost it and needed a long stint on the bench to work out his problems.
Similarly, it's not Yost's fault that Chad Moeller can't hit major league pitching, but it is his fault for keeping him in the big leagues for a year-and-a-half of embarassing at-bats.
I take your point on applying a football mentality to baseball, but I point to a guy down I-94 who seems to use something like a football mentality successfully, ...Ozzie Guillen.
I think most professional athletes will give you 100% every day, and most if not all current Brewers do. But I think that good coaches are the coaches that get more out of you.
And finally, I like the idea of firing him because of the message it sends to the league and the team. The old days are gone. We expect to win. And failure is no longer tolerated. Too bad we will be sending the opposite message yet again.
Sincerely,
Mr. Frogurt
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