By Jordan Long
The Kansas City Royals have their new manager. The job had been open since Ned Yost decided to retire from managing at the end of the year. He had been the manager of the Royals since 2010.
Yost took over the Royals in 2010. He had been the Brewers’ manager from 2003 to 2008. His record with the Brewers was 457-502, a winning percentage of .477. The Brewers let Yost go with 12 games left in the 2008 season.
Prior to hiring Yost, the Royals missed the playoffs every year since 1985 when they won the World Series. Since 1985, the Royals had 6 seasons where they finished above .500. Yost took over the Royals after they fired Trey Hillman on May 13th, 2010. At the time the Royals were 12-23. Yost finished the season at 55-72. The Royals decided he had done enough to earn the job to manage the ball club in 2011.
With Yost as manager Kansas City had 3 seasons where they won more than 81 games. Those were in 2013, 2014, and 2015. The Royals went to the playoffs twice with him winning 2 American League Pennants. They lost the World Series in 2014 to the San Francisco Giants in 7 games. In 2015 they won the World Series, this time beating the New York Mets in 5 games. Yost leaves Major League Baseball with a career record of 1203-1341, a winning percentage of .473.
The Royals started a managerial search after the season ended. They wanted somebody who had been a manager in Major League Baseball. There were plenty of candidates out there including Mike Matheny, Joe Maddon, Clint Hurdle and Brad Ausmus. In the end they went with Matheny.
Matheny was the St. Louis Cardinals manager from 2012 to 2018. St. Louis made the playoffs 4 times including a trip to the World Series in 2013. They lost to the Boston Red Sox in 6 games. Matheny was fired 93 games into the 2018 season. The Cardinals at the time were 47-46. They finished the year at 88-74.
Kansas City is hoping Matheny can turn this team into a playoff team. It is going to take a few seasons to do so. The only way this works is if Matheny can guide them to few playoff appearances. He won’t have the pressure of winning a World Series like he did in St. Louis. If Matheney fails to make the postseason in the next 3 or 4 years, it will be back to the drawing board for Kansas City.
Leave a Reply