The Royals

They’re in the World Series, and the usually critical Joe Posnanski does a good job of rolling back the years, and finding a sliver of possible evidence that Ned Yost is responsible for some of the Royals’ post season run.

For me, the evidence is that when player’s play good things can happen. The bad possible thing is if a manager gets in the way.

The Ned Yost story seems to bear that out. His basic impulse is good. Empower the players so they do their best. Which is powerful, since his in game sense is weak. But maybe that isn’t as important, especially when you’re on a run.

At this point we really have no idea. Joe’s anecdotal piece makes a strong anecdotal argument that the manager is happenstance, mostly. But we don’t really know, as Joe’s history of Royals managers, a part of the story, seems to lay out quite vividly.