It sure looks like Ryan Braun’s team now, doesn’t it?
He’s certainly got the talent, and the Rookie of the Year hardware backs that up.
He’s also got the big contract extension, the first among Milwaukee’s young core of players who can claim that.
And day by day, Braun increasingly proves he wants to be Milwaukee’s Alpha Dog. It’s as clear as the words coming out of his mouth.
Not long after hitting two more home runs in another losing cause (Sunday’s defeat at Boston was Milwaukee’s ninth straight road setback and dropped the Brewers to sole possession of last place in the N.L. Central), Braun positively shocked reporters – and likely teammates – with his honesty.
“I almost felt in this series that we didn’t expect to win,” Braun said. “I felt like we were competing and I know everybody tried hard, but it’s not about trying hard. You have to go out there and expect to win, and I almost feel like we didn’t expect to win…”
Wow.
Teammates can get away with a lot of things in a baseball clubhouse – like paying off a $1,500 bet entirely in pennies – but questioning each other’s desire isn’t one of them. Braun knows that, which means this quote was no accident. He’s looking for a reaction, looking to be a motivator.
Looking to be a leader.
It’s not the first time Braun’s comments have drawn the spotlight. Earlier in the month, he perked up a few ears when talking about Milwaukee’s struggling offense: “But you can only say, ‘It’s early,’ for so long. It’s time to get going.”
His latest comments mirrored that sentiment, but also seemed more pointed and urgent.
“We have to figure it out, and we have to figure it out in a hurry. We’re better than that,” Braun said Sunday. “We’re certainly talented enough to win games, but a lot of it is our approach mentally, [which] sometimes has to improve.”
The team’s mental approach? Now he’s not just talking about the players, but the manager, too. When a team’s mental approach is off, then its preparation is off. And when a team’s not prepared properly, that’s the manager’s fault.
It’s often tough to get a genuine feel for how players feel about their manager, but this could be a hint that things are starting to fracture. When a manager loses his players, it’s incumbent upon a team’s leadership to address the issue.
More and more, the man flexing that muscle is Braun.
Toasty for Yosty
In light of Braun’s comments, is it any wonder that the burner under Ned Yost’s hot seat just went from simmering to scalding? And how long can it be before Yost is finally burned?
Only BadgerBlogger.com has reported that Yost’s firing is imminent, citing “sources close to the Milwaukee Brewers organization” and saying it would happen Monday. But the Journal Sentinel promptly reported the organization’s denial, and Monday came and went with no action.
Still, as I wrote last week, there must be heated conversations within the organization about Yost’s future. He’s beginning to look like a man with no answers. The Brewers, now 20-24, entered this week as losers of five straight and 12 of 16, putting them seven games behind division leader Chicago. You can’t win a division title in May, but you can lose one, and the Crew is creeping up on that reality.
Change must come, and it must come soon, and it smells like that change will include a new manager. In a Yahoo! Sports poll on who would be the first big-league manager fired this season, Yost easily won (or lost?) with 44 percent of the vote.
So who would replace Yost? The popular names:
Ted Simmons: Nobody is more baseball-smart than Simmons, and the first-year bench coach has a wealth of experience, but none as a field manager. Brewers fans would welcome him, but would he even want the job at the expense of Yost? After all, their friendship is the reason Simmons came here in the first place.
Dale Sveum: Simmons replaced him as Milwaukee’s bench coach, pushing Sveum into a role as the Crew’s third base coach. Sveum has managerial experience in Pittsburgh’s minor league system, and he knows all about pressure. As Boston’s third base coach, Sveum was routinely raked over the coals by that city’s obsessive media contingent. But would replacing Yost with Sveum, who’s already been in the clubhouse for three years, really shake things up that much? And isn’t shaking things up one of the main reasons you’d make a change at this point?
Bobby Valentine: So good that he’s starring in a movie on ESPN. And whenever there’s a managerial opening, Valentine’s name seems to crop up. But he sure looks like a man who’s happy to be eating sushi in Japan, so it seems like a red herring.
Frank Kremblas: My personal frontrunner. He’s managed the Nashville Sounds, Milwaukee’s Triple-A affiliate, since 2005, and was the organization’s Double-A manager before that. He’s not the sexiest name out there, but you can’t argue with his results: three straight division titles, the 2005 Pacific Coast League championship and PCL Manager of the Year in 2007. Moreover, he’s intimately familiar with Milwaukee’s core of young talent.
On a related note, Brewers GM Doug Melvin hadn’t altered his plans to make a trip to Nashville, according to TMJ4’s Lance Allan. Is he doing so just to talk business or make a job offer?
Quote of note
From the manager of a 20-24 team that was expected to contend for its division title, but now finds itself in last place. And his name isn’t Ned Yost.
“I’m the leader. I’ve got to find something. It all comes back to the leader, and the leader has to take charge. We have to find a way to win games.”
– Joe Girardi, New York Yankees skipper, after falling six games behind Boston on Sunday.
And finally…
It’s pingpong ball time in the NBA, something the Milwaukee Bucks are all too familiar with. The draft lottery is Tuesday night, and officially, the Bucks have a 4.3 percent chance of winning the first pick. Not too exciting, right? Well maybe this will get your juices flowing.
Over at thebratwurst.com, somebody put an awful lot of work into wondering how things may have been different had the Bucks drafted Chris Paul instead of Andrew Bogut. Funny stuff, especially about that typo on Dan Gadzuric’s contract.
Tune in every Tuesday morning from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. when I join Doug Russell and Mike Wickett on SportsRadio 1250 AM. And don’t forget to check out our Bar Time column.
