Yuniesky Betancourt: What value does he bring to the team? (part 1)

[RockCoCougars]

I have never really been bothered by guys swinging at the first pitch, as long as it is a strike. Letting the pitcher get ahead 0-1 on a grooved fastball just to take a pitch seems silly. Hardy used to drive me crazy watching a fastball down the middle of the plate to fall behind 0-1, especially knowing he was a fastball hitter. It looks like YB is better served swinging at the first pitch.

 

Not picking Hardy because he plays the same position as YB but because he always stood out to me as letting good pitches go by just to take a pitch.

I agree. I've never understood the logic behind taking the first pitch just because. That may be the best pitch you see if you fall behind 0-1.

[Oldcity]

If you swing at the first pitch, it had better be a real hitter's pitch. Not simply a strike... A first-pitch fastball on the black low and away in the strike zone is not a good pitch to swing at. If you can't drive the ball, it's a bad at-bat.

 

There are many more benefits to taking the first pitch other than the possibility of getting ahead in the count. Seeing what the pitcher has, working his arm, giving everyone else a better look, etc.

[Ennder]

I expect guys like Braun, Fielder, etc. to push him if he does starts to dog it.

 

Maybe that's why he's playing better defense. Someone showed him the footage of Prince pinning Parra to the wall and said "this will be you if you dog it in the field."

His defense has still been bad on the year, BIZ has him negative now as does UZR. He just has no range and that is going to make him a bad defensive player no matter what he does. The best they can hope for is that they can hide it some with the shifts.

[Thurston Fluff]

To take the optimistic side maybe moving to the easier league and a

better hitters park helps. Also moving to a team where winning

actually matters might help too since he seems to be a lazy player and

playing on a losing team can't help with that.

 

Not only a winning team bu ta contract year. The lazy guys are the ones who seem to have that one good season coincidentally line up with a walk year. All in all I think BM knew he was getting a subpar player but added up all the pros and cons of the team and decided the team built as it is can get us to the playoffs. No, it isn't perfect but it is built, Yuni B and all, to win.

[JohnBriggs12]

I expect guys like Braun, Fielder, etc. to push him if he does starts to dog it.

 

Maybe that's why he's playing better defense. Someone showed him the footage of Prince pinning Parra to the wall and said "this will be you if you dog it in the field."

His defense has still been bad on the year, BIZ has him negative now as does UZR. He just has no range and that is going to make him a bad defensive player no matter what he does. The best they can hope for is that they can hide it some with the shifts.

Brewer defense in general has been outstanding and Betancourt is part of it. You can spin it any way you want with various models (all of which are very close to average at this point), but he's been very solid and a far cry from what the doomsayers predicted.

[Ennder]

Brewer defense in general has been outstanding and Betancourt is part of it. You can spin it any way you want with various models (all of which are very close to average at this point), but he's been very solid and a far cry from what the doomsayers predicted.

 

It isn't spinning anything, if the ball isn't hit right where he can fall down and get it, it goes through for a single. I watch a lot of baseball from all teams and he has looked like one of the worst SS defensively in baseball this year, he basically never makes a play that I don't think the average SS in baseball can make and he misses a number that a lot of other SS would make. I guess the fact he doesn't throw the ball all over the field hides it from people but his range is just terrible. UZR/150 has him about normal (8 runs below average) at this point and BIZ has him at 7 runs below average compared to his normal 20 runs below average. He just isn't good defensively and he hasn't been very good this year.

[strawbossisevil]

I expect guys like Braun, Fielder, etc. to push him if he does starts to dog it.

 

Maybe that's why he's playing better defense. Someone showed him the footage of Prince pinning Parra to the wall and said "this will be you if you dog it in the field."

His defense has still been bad on the year, BIZ has him negative now as does UZR. He just has no range and that is going to make him a bad defensive player no matter what he does. The best they can hope for is that they can hide it some with the shifts.

So I guess those stats can be used...as long as they coincide with one's preconceived opinion of a player. In other words, they are worthless until they say what I want them to say.

[Ennder]

I expect guys like Braun, Fielder, etc. to push him if he does starts to dog it.

 

Maybe that's why he's playing better defense. Someone showed him the footage of Prince pinning Parra to the wall and said "this will be you if you dog it in the field."

His defense has still been bad on the year, BIZ has him negative now as does UZR. He just has no range and that is going to make him a bad defensive player no matter what he does. The best they can hope for is that they can hide it some with the shifts.

So I guess those stats can be used...as long as they coincide with one's preconceived opinion of a player. In other words, they are worthless until they say what I want them to say.

No, he has looked bad all year long and he has been bad for 6 years worth of stats now, the point of pointing out the stats is to show that they have regressed exactly where they were expected to so you can't even try to hide behind a small sample of stats to try to say he has been good. I don't know why people feel they have to go out of their way to defend bad players that get criticized but I don't know how anyone can defend Betancourt's range this season. The one method you guys have tried to use to defend him doesn't even agree he has been ok now, it has regressed exactly where it has been for years now.

 

When YOU try to use stats to prove something and a week later the stats completely disagree with what YOU are saying I think it is worth pointing it out.

[strawbossisevil]

Whatever...you just lost all credibility in this discussion. I agree that he is a below average SS, always have. It doesn't surprise me that over a whole season his production will come closer to what is expected from him.

 

But your quoting BIS (not BIZ) and UZR when a week ago you said those stats were worthless just robs you of any kind of credibility in this discussion.

 

I wasn't trying to prove that Yuni was a better than average SS, I was trying to prove that his first 15 games or so were fairly average. I still, after how many pages of posts, think you've been incapable of understanding the point I was trying to get across.

 

Your bringing up the stats now doesn't change my point. All they do is show that he's had a rough week getting to balls according to any objective measure of recording defense. That is probably a fair assessment, especially after the ball he booted in Philly.

 

Either A) You never understood my argument to begin with, or B) You are only interested in parading stats into arguments when they say what you want them to say. Which is it?

[monty57]

I expect guys like Braun, Fielder, etc. to push him if he does starts to dog it.

 

Maybe that's why he's playing better defense. Someone showed him the footage of Prince pinning Parra to the wall and said "this will be you if you dog it in the field."

His defense has still been bad on the year, BIZ has him negative now as does UZR. He just has no range and that is going to make him a bad defensive player no matter what he does. The best they can hope for is that they can hide it some with the shifts.

Ummm... That was a joke. I don't really think they threatened physical violence on Betancourt if he doesn't hustle.

 

[1992casey]

"Prove" probably isn't a good word to tie to any stat. "Demonstrates" would be better. "Supports the idea that" would likely be verbiage that best describes the role that stats play.

 

As was pointed out earlier in this topic, a huge issue with advanced defensive stats is errors in the raw data. That would mean that in addition to the randomness that's naturally involved with on-field events, the data itself might be wrong. What the data says might not be what actually happened. You need large samples to negate any potential errors.

 

With offense, you can look at a small-sample OBP and say that a player has had good results over that sample. With defense, due to the issues with the way data is collected, you can't do that.

[Ennder]

Ummm... That was a joke. I don't really think they threatened physical violence on Betancourt if he doesn't hustle.

Oh I quoted the wrong person, I can see how my post made no sense while quoting you. I meant to quote JohnBriggs12, heh.

[Ennder]

I wasn't trying to prove that Yuni was a better than average SS, I was trying to prove that his first 15 games or so were fairly average. I still, after how many pages of posts, think you've been incapable of understanding the point I was trying to get across.

 

I understand it fine, I disagree with it. His play hasn't really changed over the past week, the stats just regressed towards expectations. He is still a slow of foot SS who doesn't get to many balls and generally makes the plays on the ones right to him. He has been that all year long. I've watched almost every game this season and at no point has Betancourt looked like a good SS to me. I mean even Braun sometimes looks like a good LF for stretches of games because as long as he doesn't misread the ball or overthrow for a few games he at least displays some range, Betancourt looks like a bad SS every game, just sometimes the balls are hit right at him.

 

I think the diving catch on the ball off of Mitre is the only play the entire season that I've seen him make that I thought to myself that more than 1 or 2 SS in baseball wouldn't have made that play. He makes the plays that every SS can make and then misses some plays that a lot of SS make.

[Thurston Fluff]

For what it's worth I think he's pretty sweet at turning double plays.

[COBrewerfan]

I wasn't trying to prove that Yuni was a better than average SS, I was trying to prove that his first 15 games or so were fairly average. I still, after how many pages of posts, think you've been incapable of understanding the point I was trying to get across.

 

I understand it fine, I disagree with it. His play hasn't really changed over the past week, the stats just regressed towards expectations. He is still a slow of foot SS who doesn't get to many balls and generally makes the plays on the ones right to him. He has been that all year long. I've watched almost every game this season and at no point has Betancourt looked like a good SS to me. I mean even Braun sometimes looks like a good LF for stretches of games because as long as he doesn't misread the ball or overthrow for a few games he at least displays some range, Betancourt looks like a bad SS every game, just sometimes the balls are hit right at him.

 

I think the diving catch on the ball off of Mitre is the only play the entire season that I've seen him make that I thought to myself that more than 1 or 2 SS in baseball wouldn't have made that play. He makes the plays that every SS can make and then misses some plays that a lot of SS make.

 

If you have watched everygame and this is the feeling you get, you have some serious blinders on. It does not even pay to talk about Yuni anymore because you have made up your mind on him and cannot get out of your own way. Not even close to an accurate description.

[Ennder]

If you have watched everygame and this is the feeling you get, you have some serious blinders on. It does not even pay to talk about Yuni anymore because you have made up your mind on him and cannot get out of your own way. Not even close to an accurate description

 

Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I have 'blinders on'. I mean I could say the exact same thing to you, if you think he looks good you must have blinders on. Did that really get us anywhere? I can show you a load of stats showing that he isn't good, I can post to reporters talking about him not being good, I can show you a website where fans rate SS and he scores low. So the onus of proof is really on you to disprove the notion that he hasn't been bad this year. The only positives I see in Betancourt defensively is he doesn't seem to make a lot of dumb decisions or errors, if he had even close to average major league SS range he'd be a decent defensive SS but he just doesn't have any range.

[strawbossisevil]

I don't question that you've seen most/all of the games to this point. What I question, a bit, is your ability to recognize what an average defensive SS looks like with any sort of objectivity. Especially when the past stats have preconditioned you to assume everything he does is suck.

 

In addition, as a Brewers fan, we've spent the past half decade watching above average defensive SS. That has been the norm for all of us who have watched a ton of Brewers games. So, any step down from what we have seen is immediately going to be perceived as below average.

 

I've never been one to state that I expected Betancourt to put up average (or above) defense throughout the whole season. I do think, however, that over a stretch of a couple weeks he certainly is capable of being a fairly average defender. I think the stats (in spite of their warts) all were in agreement about Betancourt over the first few weeks of the season. And I think it showed that people on this site were being overally critical, primarily because 1) as Brewer fans it is tough to recognize average defense (having been spoiled in past years by elite SS defenders) and 2) because we were told over and over before the season began to expect the worst defensive SS in the history of baseball.

 

Like I said, I expect Betancourt to be a poor defender as the season wears on. I just didn't think he was all that poor over the first few weeks of the season. The stats backed up my viewpoint, they didn't back up yours. He's come off a week where I've felt he was rather poor in the field (cf. the play at Philly, amongst others), and the stats bear that out as well.

[1992casey]

The stats backed up my viewpoint, they didn't back up yours.

 

I think the point that's being missed is that one can't rely on small samples of defensive stats to back up any viewpoint. Take a look at what Russ wrote last week.

rluzinski wrote:

---

…One area of concern that I've read

about is hit location on balls between 2nd and 3rd, when there isn't a

base in view. Without a firm reference point, it's hard to

know exactly where the ball is. Another concern is the

somewhat subjective assessment of how hard a ball is hit.…

 

…you hope most

of this stuff evens out over the course of a season but over a couple of

weeks? No way. Until MLB tracks the exact hit

location and speed of balls in play, as well as pre-pitch location of

defenders, I believe that these metrics are going to need a large sample

to give us anything solid. Large as in, a couple of full

seasons.

If you dig back a little further in this topic, you'll find a couple of similar explanations. I picked Russ's because I remembered the author's name and because it didn't use a lot of stat-speak.

[mkm13]

I will be the 1st to say Yuni is not good defensively and equally bad on offense. I hope he does not have to be our SS for a very long time. Saying that, I think some people here are exaggerating how bad he is. To say he only gets to balls where he doesn't have to move or that are hit "right at him" is an exaggeration. He may not have good range, but come on. There is no need to exaggerate to try to prove a point. To say he has not gotten to balls where he has had to go right or left is being unreasonable. Also, any defensive statistics so far this year are for the most part meaningless, whether it shows something good or bad.

 

Yuni is not going to be much worse this year than we had at SS last year (If at all - but for this argument since people are so sensitive about how bad he is - I will not argue it). If we still had Escobar and he was posting his currently horrid 0.497 OPS this year, I guarantee we wouldn't have a 14 page thread talking about how he is the worst player in baseball. For a regular major leaguer, Yuni is bad...but it something we have to deal with. He was part of a trade that helped us get potentially one of the top 5 pitchers in baseball...be thankful for that. Every team has a couple bad players. It is not like good or even solid SS's are just sitting there ready to be picked up. Our farm system is already depleted, not like there is much available there to trade for a decent on either.

[Ennder]

To say he only gets to balls where he doesn't have to move or that are hit "right at him" is an exaggeration

 

Well I obviously didn't literally mean right at him like he wasn't capable of moving. There is a zone around players where you would assume pretty much every defensive player in the game could make the play. Yuni doesn't make many plays at all that are outside of that zone. Prince Fielder also doesn't make many outside of that zone, Mcgehee only makes them if he moves to his right, he doesn't seem to be able to make many plays to his left. Weeks, Braun and Hart all make plays outside of that zone on a regular basis, they just tend to make a lot of mistakes so it is much easier to tell when they are playing poor defense.

 

Hardy was actually a lot like Betancourt only he got better jumps on the ball and had a stronger arm so he could cheat back a couple steps, that expanded his zone quite and he had at least average range because of it. He also didn't make too many mistakes when he could get to balls. Really surprises me that Hardy got knocked on his defense on this board and Yuni is being defended because Hardy was a much better defensive SS than Betancourt is.

[strawbossisevil]

The stats backed up my viewpoint, they didn't back up yours.

 

I think the point that's being missed is that one can't rely on small samples of defensive stats to back up any viewpoint. Take a look at what Russ wrote last week.

rluzinski wrote:

---

…One area of concern that I've read

about is hit location on balls between 2nd and 3rd, when there isn't a

base in view. Without a firm reference point, it's hard to

know exactly where the ball is. Another concern is the

somewhat subjective assessment of how hard a ball is hit.…

 

…you hope most

of this stuff evens out over the course of a season but over a couple of

weeks? No way. Until MLB tracks the exact hit

location and speed of balls in play, as well as pre-pitch location of

defenders, I believe that these metrics are going to need a large sample

to give us anything solid. Large as in, a couple of full

seasons.

If you dig back a little further in this topic, you'll find a couple of similar explanations. I picked Russ's because I remembered the author's name and because it didn't use a lot of stat-speak.

I didn't miss the point. I just don't agree entirely. I think, when 4 separate defensive evaluations, all trying to be as objective as possible, come up with pretty much the same evaluation. I think there is far more value to that than "I've watched all the games this season so therefore I know that he is awful". Evaluating solely with the eyes is going to result in bias based on 1) what the viewer's previous experiences are (which I pointed out, for Brewers fans has been above average SS play for a large number of years), along with 2) what his preconceived expectations are. Those are filters through which we watch the games and it is simply impossible to be anywhere close to objective (myself included).

My eyes told me he was a bit better than this "worst defender in the league" talk. So I turned to four separate objective defensive stats to see what they had to say, and each individually said the same thing, "He's been better than expected." Thus, backing my viewpoint up. This, combined with threads filling up with angry ranting about how horrific our defense had been at SS to that point of the season led me to post that people should try to be more objective with their criticism. I personally think many are complaining for complaining's sake. It is like the boy who cried wolf. If you complain when his defense hasn't been all that horrible, are people going to listen to your complaints when he is actually playing like the worst defensive SS in league history?

I was willing to let my disagreement on this point die. Until Ennder felt the need to 1) post something he himself suggested was worthless (but posting it solely because it agreed with his point from a week ago - despite the fact that it actually changes nothing about the time period we were discussing to begin with) and 2) his ignoring of what my original point was to begin with (claiming that I thought Betancourt would be a good SS - something I obviously never once stated).

 

[mkm13]

Really surprises me that Hardy got knocked on his defense on this board and Yuni is being defended because Hardy was a much better defensive SS than Betancourt is.

I don't see anyone that is defending him calling his defense good (or if there is, it is a very small amount). The people that are defending him know he is not good defensively, but are responding to the people who are exaggerating how bad he is and being unreasonable about it. The level at which people were getting on Hardy does not even come close to what people are saying about Betancourt.

 

 

[Thurston Fluff]

It is not like good or even solid SS's are just sitting there ready to be picked up.

 

The option I thought could have been better was Cruz. So far he's putting up a 260 OBP which isn't all that far from his 309 from last season. Goes to show what I know. Given his age it's hard to see him putting up even Yuni's offensive numbers in the majors. To be that bad at the plate he has to be gold glove material defensively. I'm not sure even Yuni's bad all around game is as bad as what Cruz would be doing now.

[strawbossisevil]

Really surprises me that Hardy got knocked on his defense on this board and Yuni is being defended because Hardy was a much better defensive SS than Betancourt is.

I don't see anyone that is defending him calling his defense good (or if there is, it is a very small amount). The people that are defending him know he is not good defensively, but are responding to the people who are exaggerating how bad he is and being unreasonable about it. The level at which people were getting on Hardy does not even come close to what people are saying about Betancourt.

 

Best post in this entire thread as it is exactly the point. No one is calling him good, or even suggesting that he could be good outside of a couple weeks where he got to a few more balls than he typically has in his career. And speaking personally as someone who defended Hardy's defense, I think you continue to miss the point. I defended Hardy when many thought he was average or below average on defense because that was unfair criticism. I'll defend Betancourt when the criticism concerning his defense is unfair as well.

[Ennder]

The worst defensive regular SS in baseball usually only costs the team 10 runs or so on the year. To be the worst SS in baseball all you have to do is miss 1 or 2 plays a week that most SS would make. I think Yuni is pretty close to doing that this year though he has made up for it a little bit by not making any errors yet, I think you guys are overestimating how bad the worst regular SS in baseball is. He likely won't be the worst this year though because Starlin Castro is in the league and he is so bad he gets hit in the face by throws right to him.

 

The worst defensive full time SS in baseball between 2008 and 2011 is Betancourt at -38 UZR. The second worse is Bartlett at -14 so the 2nd worst is costing his team less than 5 runs per year.

 

Sure there are part time fill in type SS that are worse but I don't think many really count that type of player in this type of discussion. I mean Betancourt is no Jayson Nix or Jeff Keppinger, I imagine if we had someone like that at SS he would be removed from the job.