I was attracted to this article by the headline:

How Ned Yost Made the Kansas City Royals Unstoppable

It reminds me of my favorite moment of sports broadcasting. We were in our dorm room watching a Philadelphia 76ers playoff game around 1980, and as the broadcast returned from a commercial break, Dick Stockton said, “When Andrew Toney is on the court, the 76ers are unstoppable. That doesn’t mean they can’t be stopped.”

The gist of the article is that Yost did a good job of developing both the Brewers and Royals into contenders:

Later, Yost would be criticized for not replacing erratic infielders when he had late-inning leads and allowing untested pitchers to compete — and often fail — in crucial situations. The critics didn’t understand, he told me, that he wasn’t necessarily trying to win those games. ‘‘The difference between 72 and 76 wins doesn’t mean a damn thing to me,’’ he says. It was the same as the difference between second place and last place, which, Earnhardt had stressed, was no difference at all.

‘‘I wanted to put those young players in a position to gain experience, so that when we could compete for a championship, they’d know how,’’ Yost says. ‘‘You can’t do that when you’re pinch-hitting for young guys. You can’t do it when you quick-hook starting pitchers. They’ll never learn to work themselves out of trouble. People would say, ‘What’s he doing?’ They didn’t understand. I’d rather lose a game on my watch so they could win later.’’

The other theme is that Yost is not a numbers guy, and will do things that drive statisticians crazy. That leads to a great exchange with Jonah Keri:

Keri wrote a book about the Tampa Bay Rays when Maddon was the team’s manager. Against all odds, Maddon took that frugal, data-centric team to the World Series. Its success, Keri wrote, was predicated on Maddon’s willingness to be guided by the advanced analytics compiled by the Rays’ braintrust. As we talked, Keri offhandedly explained that Maddon has an advantage over other number-crunchers. ‘‘He’s a charmer,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s pretty clear that the best thing he does is, he’s a likable guy. He gets players to like him and play for him.’’

The way he described the sport’s most respected manager sounded a lot like its least respected manager, I pointed out. Yost gave the Royals confidence in their abilities and the freedom to play with enthusiasm. His optimism might be goofy, I admitted, but it was infectious. ‘‘Then it turns out they’re pretty similar,’’ Keri considered. ‘‘Because it’s all really about empowering your players and creating a comfortable environment for them to thrive.’’

‘‘It’s strange,’’ he said, still musing as we were leaving. ‘‘They actually do a lot of the same things.’’

To me, a manager’s job is to put players in situations with the highest probability of success. Some managers do that by knowing the strengths and weaknesses of his players and the opposition to a fine detail. Some do it by instilling confidence in their charges. You can do every thing right the first way and a little luck will send you home for the winter.

As for the unstoppable Royals, they were 11-17 in September do to a pitching staff that suddenly started allowing home runs and walks. They were 1-5 in one run games. Maybe they were coasting, having built a huge lead in the AL Central. They’ve lost the top spot in the AL, however, and may not have home field advantage in the ALCS. Luck can go both ways, and October is a bad time for it to go south.