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

[TooLiveBrew]

WAR: 0.2 (only 7 regular-ish SSs have been worse so far)

wOBA: .291 (only 9 regular-ish SSs have been worse so far)

 

That is a bad player. He has been bad, and does not project to be good. I understand people rallying around a whipping-boy, but let's not forget facts here. I'm all for moving on, but the constant complaining about how he's not bad just isn't true.

[strawbossisevil]

No the point is that he has not been bad at all. He may just be an average player but he is just fine seeing we have great hitters on the team and he just happens to be one of the average guys. And defensively we have all kinds of issues so we hope he limits the mistakes, which he has, and has made some good plays as well.

 

Some will continue to look for anything to harp on the guy which seems like a waste of time. Some will defend him. But I am just hoping we can start winning games in bunches and get past some of this. It is funny how he has captured the BF.net folks and created this argument. But I will still never see how over this period (if there were not stats and previous judgements) you would kill the guy and say that he has be absolutely awful and is killing the team. I just have no idea if you have seen most or all of the games how you come to that conclusion.

No, he's been bad/below average. Just not as bad as was expected at this point. It is true that some go overboard with their criticism, but at the same time there are a few here that are playing down his weak traits as if they don't exist at all. COBrewerfan, don't make the mistake of going overboard in the opposite direction when trying to point out how many are going too far with their criticism.

TooLive, there have been very few people in this thread who are stating that "he's not bad". That hasn't been the "constant complaint". The argument mainly has been that many are being overly critical and lacking objectivity with Yuni, and that there were no other better options available to start at SS. The argument isn't that Yuni is a good player, or even an average player. He simply isn't.

 

[DuWayne Steurer]

TooLive, there have been very few people in this thread who are stating that "he's not bad". That hasn't been the "constant complaint". The argument mainly has been that many are being overly critical and lacking objectivity with Yuni, and that there were no other better options available to start at SS. The argument isn't that Yuni is a good player, or even an average player. He simply isn't.

 

I don't think I've been overly critical. I do, however, admit that I've been CONTINUOUSLY critical. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

I KNEW the second he hit the homerun the other night that there would be some "I told you so!" posts, and some "Big deal, one homerun!" posts. KNEW it. (to my next door neighbor, I told you so!).

 

It is what it is. He's a below average performer on a team hoping to make the playoffs. From 1994 til 2007, I likely wouldn't have been so down on the guy. I probably even would have been a fan. But this year, knowing where we stand in the 'go for it or rebuild' cycle, I can't help but grit my teeth at a negative WAR player starting at the most important defensive position in a season we SHOULD be making a playoff push. I'll get over it (eventually). I won't cheer when he hits homeruns. Not because I don't want him to succeed, but because every success makes it that much more likely that Doug will be content with what he's got, and not try to upgrade the position at the deadline. I've NEVER rooted against a Brewer before, but I find that this is exactly what I'm doing. Not because I hate Yuni B. But because a replacement player shouldn't be starting for a playoff contender. If he fails and fails hard, Doug will have to do something.........right? RIGHT?!!?

 

NOW, on the other hand, if he goes nuts from here on out, puts up an .800 OPS with 18-20 dingers (LOL!), I'll be as big a fan of the guy as anyone, but I'll want him gone the day after the regular season ends.

[TheCrew]

I really should've waited longer to post, as I'm sure you were right on your way to remind everyone that after tonight's game, his OBP is back under the .300 mark.

 

Not that it's really relevant anyway... sample size is still way too small to be drawing important conclusions... and, as brewers19 noted, a .300 OBP still really sucks. The general argument is that, over the course of the entire season, Betancourt is going to hurt the team. Not that over stretches of 15 games he might help the team.

 

You know the overall state of the team is good, though, when the biggest BF.net argument is over whether Betancourt TOTALLY SUCKS, or is just bad.

Saturday night, so I couldn't make it back in - Yes, a .300 obp sucks. I was being sarcastic because of comments earlier in this thread. Thought that one was obvious enough that it didn't have to be in blue - I'm too lazy to look the comments up specifically at this point, really because it doesn't matter at this point as every angle has pretty much been covered on this topic.

 

Yuni could continue to play the defense he is playing now, hit .300 and 20+ homers and people would still complain because of the labels he was given by a few bloggers while playing for last place teams.

[TheCrew]

NOW, on the other hand, if he goes nuts from here on out, puts up an .800 OPS with 18-20 dingers (LOL!), I'll be as big a fan of the guy as anyone, but I'll want him gone the day after the regular season ends.

Honestly, that is my biggest fear - He puts together a good season at the plate and then Doug gives him a Bill Hall type contract.

[Tedaldtada]

TheCrew wrote:

Yuni could continue to play the defense he is playing now, hit .300 and 20+ homers and people would still complain because of the labels he was given by a few bloggers while playing for last place teams.

Yes, if he continued to play defense as he currently is, people would keep complaining. If he hits .300 with 20+ bombs, people would be ecstatic, but what does that have to do with poor defense?

[Thundercat32]

copied from my post in the twoplustwo.com single season Brewers team thread. Referring to the April 18th 6-3 extra innings win over the Phils.

 

"Betancourt is such an [expletive deleted]. I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but his at bat in the 12th tonight just tilted me so hard I needed to come here and post about it.

 

How in the name of all thats good & holy are you first pitch swinging there? Kendrick starts off walking Weeks, then airmails a throw to get Gomez at first, he leaves two pitches up in the strike zone to Braun one he misses for a grounder foul down the 3rd base line and on the very next pitch he misses up in the strike zone again Braun sent that one 399 1/2 feet to straight away Centerfield for the sac fly, then he throws a wild pitch to McGhee advancing both Gomez and Prince into scoring position, which forces Kendrick to intentionally walk Casey. I mean Keiran Lee has a better chance of coming back with a negative std test result at the local clinic than Kendrick does of finding the strike zone anytime this millennium. Bases are loaded and Betancourt sees 1 pitch. Thats just mindblowing, literally I question if you hooked Betancourt's head up with electrodes if you'd find any evidence of brain activity whatsoever.

 

It was a stupid decision that wound up working out with a sac fly, but I don't think that excuses how bad it was."

 

 

Betancourt provides a strong case for the use of capital punishment imo.

 

 

(edit: language / please see language etiquette regarding the responsibility to edit out words that are filtered)

[dlk9s]

Why did you think that re-post was a good idea?

[monty57]

So he's in a position where it is VERY likely that the pitcher will groove a BP fastball right down the middle of the plate, and when he swings at it and achieves a positive result he should be up for capital punishment?

 

Is there a site which shows how often a player swings at pitches out of the strike zone, and how often they let pitches in the strike zone go by? To me (note that this is a "naked eye test"), Yuni swings at strikes and makes contact a lot, leading to very few walks. A pitcher would basically need to throw four straight balls to start the AB in order to walk him, but doesn't necessarily mean that he has poor plate discipline. This is in contrast to someone like Gomez who swings at pitches well out of the strike zone on a regular basis.

[Thundercat32]

Why did you think that re-post was a good idea?

I guess I'm missing the part where re-posting it is a bad idea

[nikegolf6]

Is there a site which shows how often a player swings at pitches out of the strike zone, and how often they let pitches in the strike zone go by? To me (note that this is a "naked eye test"), Yuni swings at strikes and makes contact a lot, leading to very few walks.

I dont have time to add anything, but here: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=8585&position=SS

Under plate discipline.

 

[RockCoCougars]

I guess that I'm not understanding how people can argue that Betancourt is playing poor defense. How many balls has he let go through his legs? How many bobbles on a sure DP grounder? How many poor throws to first? Not many that I've seen. I'll I hear about is this lack of range. Most of these that I've seen have been balls hit up the middle and probably would have ended up as infield hits anyway.

 

In my view defense is very overrated on this site. Baseball is not like football or basketball where arguably defense is half or more of the game. In baseball, a huge chunk of your 'defense' lies with your pitcher's accumen, or lack there of. I believe Sparky Anderson once said that pitching was 85% of the game or thereabouts. I don't think that it's that high, but it's probably a tad over 50%. Kick in your hitting, and where does that leave defense? I'd say maybe 15%-20% or so. I'm not saying that you can put a little league defense out there, but most guys in the majors, including Betancourt, will make the routine play over 95% of the time. Very rarely do you have truly atrocious defensive players (see Braun's rookie year at third), and they tend to play themselves out of a position pretty quickly. My argument here is that the difference between Betancourt and an 'elite defensive' SS is not that much over the course of the season. The elite guy may get you an out or two extra a week or 10 days.....basically maybe saving a few singles. Food for thought, Loe came in last night and put two guys on in less than an inning in free passes, so who has hurt the team worse in the past two weeks, Loe or Betancourt?

[TooLiveBrew]

I'll I hear about is this lack of range.

 

Take the play that Weeks overthrew last night. A SS with MLB-average range gets to that ball (on the SS side of the 2B bag, no less) & Weeks doesn't feel like he has to try to be Superman & try to make one of the most spectacular plays in his career. It was a pretty routine grounder to SS, not hit hard, but Betancourt didn't even try to get there before Weeks. I will admit I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember that being one of RRR's drastic shifts, either.

 

No one is complaining that Betancourt has stone hands, or a poor arm. He has the range of a 3Bman, & the Brewers are trying to pass him off as an everyday defender at SS.

[strawbossisevil]

I'll I hear about is this lack of range.

 

Take the play that Weeks overthrew last night. A SS with MLB-average range gets to that ball (on the SS side of the 2B bag, no less) & Weeks doesn't feel like he has to try to be Superman & try to make one of the most spectacular plays in his career. It was a pretty routine grounder to SS, not hit hard, but Betancourt didn't even try to get there before Weeks. I will admit I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember that being one of RRR's drastic shifts, either.

 

No one is complaining that Betancourt has stone hands, or a poor arm. He has the range of a 3Bman, & the Brewers are trying to pass him off as an everyday defender at SS.

Betancourt was there to make that play last night, if you don't believe me watch it again. Weeks cut in front of him. That play happened not as a result of bad range on Yuni's part, but because of Rickie's decision to cut in front of Yuni to try and make the play himself. I'm still not sure if Yuni would have got the runner at first as the runner got down the line fast and Yuni had come a long way to get it, but he had a better chance there than Rickie did.

 

Rickie got to it first because he wasn't playing nearly as deep in the hole as Yuni. It was as simple as that. It had nothing to do with this idea that he had to somehow make an amazing play because Yuni wouldn't be there.

[monty57]

Is there a site which shows how often a player swings at pitches out of the strike zone, and how often they let pitches in the strike zone go by? To me (note that this is a "naked eye test"), Yuni swings at strikes and makes contact a lot, leading to very few walks.

I dont have time to add anything, but here: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=8585&position=SS

Under plate discipline.

 

 

Thanks for the link! I've compared Yuni to Braun (who is obviously a better hitter, and walks more) and the aforementioned Gomez.

 

Stats are this season (career)

 

Yuni swings at 74.2% (68.5%) of the strikes thrown his way and 37.3% (32.2%) of the balls. He makes contact on 97.4% (94.2%) of strikes and 66.1% (74.2%) of balls.

Braun swings at 58.6% (66.3%) of strikes and 29.7% (31.3%) of balls. He makes contact on 85% (88.4%) of strikes and 72.4% (62.1%) of balls.

Gomez swings at 73.9% (67.5%) of strikes and 26.1% (35.4%) of balls. He makes contact on 87.2% (86.6%) of strikes and 65.2% (60.2%) of balls.

 

League averages for 2007-2011 show players swinging at around 64-66% of strikes and 25-29% of balls, making contact on around 87-88% of strikes and 60-66% of balls.

 

All three of the Brewers players I looked at swing at more than their share of pitches out of the strike zone. What really stands out at me is how good Yuni is at making contact. If a pitcher throws him a strike, he is making contact 72.27% (64.52%) of the time, compared to league average of around 56.55%. That could go a long ways toward figuring out why he doesn't take a lot of walks... if the pitcher throws him a strike, he is very likely to hit it. Additionally, he makes contact with 23.89% of the balls he sees vs. around 17% for league average.

[stoutdude04]

If I recall I too thought YB was not even close to making that play. Perhaps I will try to find a replay.

[1992casey]

What really stands out at me is how good Yuni is at making contact. If a pitcher throws him a strike, he is making contact 72.27% (64.52%) of the time, compared to league average of around 56.55%. That could go a long ways toward figuring out why he doesn't take a lot of walks... if the pitcher throws him a strike, he is very likely to hit it. Additionally, he makes contact with 23.89% of the balls he sees vs. around 17% for league average.

 

When you couple the high contact rates with Yuni's low OBP, it would lead one to conclude that a lot of that contact isn't going to be very solid.

[RockCoCougars]

What really stands out at me is how good Yuni is at making contact. If a pitcher throws him a strike, he is making contact 72.27% (64.52%) of the time, compared to league average of around 56.55%. That could go a long ways toward figuring out why he doesn't take a lot of walks... if the pitcher throws him a strike, he is very likely to hit it. Additionally, he makes contact with 23.89% of the balls he sees vs. around 17% for league average.

 

When you couple the high contact rates with Yuni's low OBP, it would lead one to conclude that a lot of that contact isn't going to be very solid.

That doesn't appear to be the case though. He's hit a lot of balls hard to the outfield that have ended up being caught, so I think that he's been a little unlucky. It's not like Jason Kendall where almost every at bat ended up with a weak grounder somewhere.

[strawbossisevil]

If I recall I too thought YB was not even close to making that play. Perhaps I will try to find a replay.

I watched it multiple times. He would have been there.

[TheCrew]

Take the play that Weeks overthrew last night. A SS with MLB-average range gets to that ball (on the SS side of the 2B bag, no less) & Weeks doesn't feel like he has to try to be Superman & try to make one of the most spectacular plays in his career. It was a pretty routine grounder to SS, not hit hard, but Betancourt didn't even try to get there before Weeks. I will admit I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember that being one of RRR's drastic shifts, either.

 

No one is complaining that Betancourt has stone hands, or a poor arm. He has the range of a 3Bman, & the Brewers are trying to pass him off as an everyday defender at SS.

There is absolutely no doubt Yuni would have had that ball - and how does a better short stop get to the ball on the SS side of the bag....... don't follow that one at all. If a ball is hit up the middle, it's up the middle - a better defensive shortstop doesn't change that.

 

Furthermore, Weeks made a terrible play - let's be honest here. Really getting ridiculous at this point, people need to quit trying to scapegoat Yuni for everything.

 

I guess McGehee and Mitre tossing the ball around today were Yuni's fault as well.............

[PrinceEatMeat]

Take the play that Weeks overthrew last night. A SS with MLB-average range gets to that ball (on the SS side of the 2B bag, no less) & Weeks doesn't feel like he has to try to be Superman & try to make one of the most spectacular plays in his career. It was a pretty routine grounder to SS, not hit hard, but Betancourt didn't even try to get there before Weeks. I will admit I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember that being one of RRR's drastic shifts, either.

 

No one is complaining that Betancourt has stone hands, or a poor arm. He has the range of a 3Bman, & the Brewers are trying to pass him off as an everyday defender at SS.

There is absolutely no doubt Yuni would have had that ball - and how does a better short stop get to the ball on the SS side of the bag....... don't follow that one at all. If a ball is hit up the middle, it's up the middle - a better defensive shortstop doesn't change that.

 

Furthermore, Weeks made a terrible play - let's be honest here. Really getting ridiculous at this point, people need to quit trying to scapegoat Yuni for everything.

 

I guess McGehee and Mitre tossing the ball around today were Yuni's fault as well.............

There are certain slower bouncing balls up the middle that better defensive shortstops with good range would get to. Otherwise I would agree with everything you said, and the play with Weeks last night had nothing to do with Yuni no doubt.

[jwill535]

While he is not going to be Escobar(either one), we can all agree that he isnt as horribly bad as was billed to be. I would say he is an average SS. If his batting were better, it wouldnt be an issue.

[rluzinski]

we can all agree that he isnt as horribly bad as was billed to be. I would say he is an average SS

 

You simply can't come up with an accurate estimate of a player's talent from watching him for a month (defense especially). With regard to what I've seen. He's handled balls to him just fine and his arm has been good so far. He just looks slow. How slow? After a month of play, hard for me to say.

[mothershipconnection]

Russ, you can't make those statements, because you never played sports in your life, just read blogs all day and have never actually watched a baseball game.

Pretty sure this has cemented itself alongside "catching WOAH SOLVDD" as one of the more bizarre threads in site history. Come to think of it, a discussion/argument over worst thread in site history would be far more entertaining than this: let's do that instead.

[danzig6767]

He made another good play today while ranging over to his right. I've noticed that for whatever reason, so far he seems to struggle more ranging over to his left on balls up the middle vs balls hit to the right of him. On a few of the plays he's made ranging far to his right where he has to make a long throw and do it quickly, i have been impressed with his arm.