from Amazon
Saturday, May 24, 2008
It is official: A major league manager (claims that he) has read The Book.
From this BP interview with Ned Yost:
I used to be a proponent of the bunt a lot more, but I’ve kind of gotten away from that a little bit. I’ve studied a bunch of different things. I’ve read The Book, and The Book on the Book. Some of the stuff makes sense to me, and some of it doesn’t. I still play the game by feel, too. It’s a game, and you have to play the game--not just do statistical probabilities every pitch.
Now, if he had really read (and understood and digested) The Book, he would have said something like, “I used to be a proponent of the bunt. I am still a proponent, but I realize that there are many good and bad times to bunt which don’t necessarily go along with conventional wisdom or what most of the other managers do, and I really realize that I must always mix up my bunts and non-bunts randomly (or at least they must appear to be somewhat random) in order to keep the defense guessing.”
But I guess he missed those parts.