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

[strawbossisevil]

You mean the Luis Cruz who is hitting .227/.244/.432 at AAA? Yeah, we'd be much better off.

Some here have honestly lost their ability to think objectively on this subject.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Straw, you've clarified that you do hope for an improvement at SS at the deadline, so I can buy that. However, these games in April count just as much towards the final standings. that being said, I know that trade options in April are going to be extremely limited. I think most of people's frustrations come from the fact that once we acquired Betencourt, Melvin was (at least seemingly) content to stand pat at that position. Were there better options? Maybe. It's a moot point now.

 

However, my frustration isn't with your viewpoint, you've openly said "I hope for an upgrade come July", my frustration is with the "let's give him a few more at bats" people. I no more expect Betencourt to have an OPS over .700 in July than I would expect McGehee to have an OPS below .700 in July. Too much history to suggest he's going to suddenly become a viable offensive player.

 

No other option exists, understood, I can buy that. But the 'let's give him a chance to see what he can do because I don't trust 7 years worth of stats, scouts, and fans in KC and Seattle" is just as asinine as the people who are clamoring for an upgrade (like me) when there probably isn't one to be had right now.

 

The guy sucks, we're stuck with him for now.

 

Myself and others will continue to rant about how much he sucks. Others will (I'm sure) tell us to stop complaining. My simple answer. No.

[PKBadger]

I just see the complaining as pointless. Nobody makes trades on April 18th. Expecting anything to get done before June is foolish, and there's nobody in our minor league system that is a viable solution.

[giffted1]

Luis Cruz at SS with CC as the backup and YunE-6 cut. Much better off in other words.

That is about as useful a sample as the defensive metrics at this point. As has been pointed out, not at all useful.

So you were ready to hand the SS spot to Luis Cruz after one

good year following a career of mediocrity in the minors, but you also discredit small sample sizes?

[monty57]

I no more expect Betencourt to have an OPS over .700 in July than I would expect McGehee to have an OPS below .700 in July. Too much history to suggest he's going to suddenly become a viable offensive player.

 

Actually, other than his horrifically pathetic 2009 (.625 OPS in 134 games between KC & SEA), he has posted OPS of .666 (half a rookie year), .713, .726, .692 & .693. Nothing earth-shattering, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to have an OPS over .700 for one month (or even a year for that matter). Last year, there were 11 regular SS in the majors with an OPS of .700 or better, and Yuni was #12 with an OPS of .692. OPS in general isn't his problem, nor is batting average or SLG. His offensive deficiency lies solely in the lack of ability to let pitches out of the strike zone go by without swinging at them.

 

I can't believe I'm sticking up for Betancourt, as I do wish we had an upgrade, but I do have to be somewhat objective and realize that there are some things at which he's decent. Otherwise, it's sort of like saying Turnbow was a bad reliver because he didn't have enough velocity. Turnbow had many problems, but velocity wasn't one of them.

[logan82]

giffted1[/b]]

logan3825[/b]] Luis Cruz at SS with CC as the backup and YunE-6 cut. Much better off in other words.

That is about as useful a sample as the defensive metrics at this point. As has been pointed out, not at all useful.

So you were ready to hand the SS spot to Luis Cruz after one good year following a career of mediocrity in the minors, but you also discredit small sample sizes?

Cruz'z value over Betancourt is not in his offense but in his glove. I wouldn't expect him to hit better than Betancourt. Nothing any player has done statistically to this point in the season should really be given much weight.

 

[DuWayne Steurer]

I just see the complaining as pointless. Nobody makes trades on April 18th. Expecting anything to get done before June is foolish, and there's nobody in our minor league system that is a viable solution.

I know. I addressed that in my post. Multiple times. That doesn't mean that I'm peachy keen about Betencourt being the starting SS of the Milwaukee Brewers today.

[strawbossisevil]

Myself and others will continue to rant about how much he sucks. Others will (I'm sure) tell us to stop complaining. My simple answer. No.

And my question is, what are you hoping to accomplish with the complaining? All your complaining does is drive many of us who realize that there isn't much that can be done at this point batty. If that is your aim, I suppose your complaining is accomplishing its goal. If that's not it, what purpose could it possibly serve?

Wouldn't it be better just to accept, for now, that what we have is the best our team was able to put together going into the season? Accept that, and hold out hope for the future that Melvin makes a deal to bring an average to above average SS to Milwaukee at the trade deadline? I would think that being hopeful for the future is a whole lot better for one's health/sanity than constantly be lashing out and raging over something that is out of our control and isn't likely to change in the near future.

[danzig6767]

You mean the Luis Cruz who is hitting .227/.244/.432 at AAA? Yeah, we'd be much better off.

Some here have honestly lost their ability to think objectively on this subject.

Straw, everyone here that really wants Betancourt gone and never wanted him on the team fully accepts that odds are very high that a different SS would also be a crappy hitter just as Yuni is. That's not where the loathing of Betancourt comes from. It's that he sucks at the plate and in the field at arguably the most important defensive position on the diamond.

 

All of us that are so frustrated with him being acquired would be ok with a bad hitting SS so long as that guy was good defensively, we weren't asking Doug to acquire a guy who could put up a .750-.800 OPS. Just have skill at least at one the two areas of offense/defense, not suck at both as Betancourt does.

[COBrewerfan]

Myself and others will continue to rant about how much he sucks. Others will (I'm sure) tell us to stop complaining. My simple answer. No.

And my question is, what are you hoping to accomplish with the complaining? All your complaining does is drive many of us who realize that there isn't much that can be done at this point batty. If that is your aim, I suppose your complaining is accomplishing its goal. If that's not it, what purpose could it possibly serve?

Wouldn't it be better just to accept, for now, that what we have is the best our team was able to put together going into the season? Accept that, and hold out hope for the future that Melvin makes a deal to bring an average to above average SS to Milwaukee at the trade deadline? I would think that being hopeful for the future is a whole lot better for one's health/sanity than constantly be lashing out and raging over something that is out of our control and isn't likely to change in the near future.

I have tried to take this approach and have said as much in a couple different threads. But some feel the need to complain and bash him, over and over, when we have so many others that have the same defensive issues he does. Cruz and Punto are not upgrades and this is what we have. I think most would love to have a premium SS but that is not going to happen anytime soon. We can hope he hits something like he did last year and the errors don't come in bunches. Maybe we get lucky later in the year and someone becomes available. But I would not be surprised if nobody does.

 

[RockCoCougars]

I saw Yuni make a pretty solid play tonight ranging to his left with a strong throw. I really don't think he's that bad, certainly no worse than Escobar was last season. Sure he's hitting south of the Mendoza line right now, but I think that will change, he's been putting the bat on the ball, and hitting a lot of at 'em balls pretty hard. All that said, Felipe Lopez, who could have been had on a minor league deal, is knocking the crap out of the ball for the Rays and has been playing a passable short. He was one option that I wish that Melvin had looked into as an alternative to Counsell.

[LouisEly]

So who are you going to trade to upgrade the position - Rogers, Rivas, Peralta, or Heckathorn? Those are pretty much the only trade options left (until Thornburg is a year post-draft).

[danzig6767]

Myself and others will continue to rant about how much he sucks. Others will (I'm sure) tell us to stop complaining. My simple answer. No.

And my question is, what are you hoping to accomplish with the complaining? All your complaining does is drive many of us who realize that there isn't much that can be done at this point batty. If that is your aim, I suppose your complaining is accomplishing its goal. If that's not it, what purpose could it possibly serve?

This is a sports forum, what do you think happens a lot on nearly every sports forum out there unless a team is flat out dominant with little to no flaws?

 

Forums besides being a place to simply discuss things about a team they cheer for, they also are a place for fans to vent over things that they disagree with team management over. By your logic of saying fans shouldn't bother complaining about things they disagree with, sports forums would lose about half of their traffic if fans were just supposed to accept everything management did given fans can't do anything about it.

 

For example, if Gomez stays in the two hole all year even after Harts get back and Carlos stays the same crappy hitter, should fans here just not bother commenting on that decision since we don't get to fill out the lineup card?

[Ennder]

I didn't get to watch all of the game today but he did make a couple of nice plays today, I'll give him that. The ball of off Mitres leg/butt and the ball towards the hole a bit earlier in the game.

[strawbossisevil]

You mean the Luis Cruz who is hitting .227/.244/.432 at AAA? Yeah, we'd be much better off.

Some here have honestly lost their ability to think objectively on this subject.

Straw, everyone here that really wants Betancourt gone and never wanted him on the team fully accepts that odds are very high that a different SS would also be a crappy hitter just as Yuni is. That's not where the loathing of Betancourt comes from. It's that he sucks at the plate and in the field at arguably the most important defensive position on the diamond.

 

All of us that are so frustrated with him being acquired would be ok with a bad hitting SS so long as that guy was good defensively, we weren't asking Doug to acquire a guy who could put up a .750-.800 OPS. Just have skill at least at one the two areas of offense/defense, not suck at both as Betancourt does.

I get that. Trouble is Luis Cruz would probably hit as bad or worse than most of our pitchers. Betancourt at least has the track record of being able to put up a respectable batting average and decent slugging percentage. Luis Cruz is currently being made to look terrible by guys who aren't good enough to be in the majors. I think Luis Cruz would cost as much on the offensive side as he would have gained us on the defensive side, if not more. There is a reason he is 27, and never spent a whole season in the MLB.

As far as your response about complaining. I get venting about something you don't like every now and then. I get that. But rehashing the same complaint over...and over...and over...and over...ad nauseum is what I and others find so ridiculous. If you want to just rehash something you've already posted, open a Word doc, type out your vent, and then delete it and spare the rest of us the same old tired complaint. If you have something new to add to the discussion, by all means, add it. Part of having an intelligent discussion is getting past the...me angry...must type anger...type post.

[danzig6767]

Myself and others will continue to rant about how much he sucks. Others will (I'm sure) tell us to stop complaining. My simple answer. No.

And my question is, what are you hoping to accomplish with the complaining? All your complaining does is drive many of us who realize that there isn't much that can be done at this point batty. If that is your aim, I suppose your complaining is accomplishing its goal. If that's not it, what purpose could it possibly serve?

Wouldn't it be better just to accept, for now, that what we have is the best our team was able to put together going into the season? Accept that, and hold out hope for the future that Melvin makes a deal to bring an average to above average SS to Milwaukee at the trade deadline? I would think that being hopeful for the future is a whole lot better for one's health/sanity than constantly be lashing out and raging over something that is out of our control and isn't likely to change in the near future.

I have tried to take this approach and have said as much in a couple different threads. But some feel the need to complain and bash him, over and over, when we have so many others that have the same defensive issues he does. Cruz and Punto are not upgrades and this is what we have. I think most would love to have a premium SS but that is not going to happen anytime soon. We can hope he hits something like he did last year and the errors don't come in bunches. Maybe we get lucky later in the year and someone becomes available. But I would not be surprised if nobody does.

No question this team has all kinds of defensive problems besides Betancourt, that makes acquiring him even more troublesome. It just makes the team defensive issues worse, especially on the infield. I can't fathom another team in baseball being less athletic and having less range on the left side of the infield than the Brewers with Yuni and Casey.

 

Plus, it's a bigger deal because Betancourt plays shortstop, a premium defensive position. It's more important to have a quality defensive SS than it is a thirdbaseman, just as it is more important to have a quality CF more so than a guy in LF who plays good defense.

 

Before the season when some scouts questioned the Brewers ability to win a playoff berth, one of the main reasons why is they felt we have very poor overall team defense, which was exasperated further in their eyes by acquiring Betancourt to play shortstop for us. We already had subpar infield defense with Prince, Weeks, and McGehee, then Doug throws more gas on the fire by adding Yuni who both the stats guys and scouts agreed was a terrible defensive shortstop. Not just barely average defensively, they all agreed he really bad. So why shouldn't fans be bothered by this as we watch him hack at every garbage pitch a pitcher throws and then on defense we see him play like he's moving in mud?

[strawbossisevil]

Betancourt current UZR -.4 (He's currently on pace for his best season since 2007 in the field). Also, UZR has his range at +.2 for the season. Just to add some additional stats to the discussion on Betancourt.

[danzig6767]

You mean the Luis Cruz who is hitting .227/.244/.432 at AAA? Yeah, we'd be much better off.

Some here have honestly lost their ability to think objectively on this subject.

Straw, everyone here that really wants Betancourt gone and never wanted him on the team fully accepts that odds are very high that a different SS would also be a crappy hitter just as Yuni is. That's not where the loathing of Betancourt comes from. It's that he sucks at the plate and in the field at arguably the most important defensive position on the diamond.

 

All of us that are so frustrated with him being acquired would be ok with a bad hitting SS so long as that guy was good defensively, we weren't asking Doug to acquire a guy who could put up a .750-.800 OPS. Just have skill at least at one the two areas of offense/defense, not suck at both as Betancourt does.

As far as your response about complaining. I get venting about something you don't like every now and then. I get that. But rehashing the same complaint over...and over...and over...and over...ad nauseum is what I and others find so ridiculous. If you want to just rehash something you've already posted, open a Word doc, type out your vent, and then delete it and spare the rest of us the same old tired complaint. If you have something new to add to the discussion, by all means, add it. Part of having an intelligent discussion is getting past the...me angry...must type anger...type post.

Well Straw, the title of this thread is pretty clear. It's also very clear that for most here, they don't like Betancourt. So you won't find many positive things said about Yuni in this thread. If you find the complaining about him so annoying, there is a simply solution. Either don't come into the thread at all, scroll right past the posts by people that you know don't want Betancourt on the team, or tell us why we are wrong.

 

You're acting as if someone is pointing a gun to your head and forcing

you to read every post in this thread. That isn't the case. There have been countless different topics on this forum over the years which i chose not to read for a variety of reasons, but i didn't go in them to tell posters what they should or shouldn't say.

[strawbossisevil]

No, I've just seen the quality of posting here suffer significantly in the past couple of years. This used to be a place to go and have intelligent discussion. Now, it seems nearly every thread gets converted into some form of vent thread where the same thoughts are rehashed repeatedly without any additional thoughts being added.

 

I would like to think that this forum can be a bit more rational and controlled than the impulsive whining found on the Jsonline blogs. But if you want to defend that type of posting, more power to you.

[trwi7]

But if you want to defend that type of posting, more power to you.

 

Be careful jumping down from that pedastal you're on.

[danzig6767]

No, I've just seen the quality of posting here suffer significantly in the past couple of years. This used to be a place to go and have intelligent discussion. Now, it seems nearly every thread gets converted into some form of vent thread where the same thoughts are rehashed repeatedly without any additional thoughts being added.

 

I would like to think that this forum can be a bit more rational and controlled than the impulsive whining found on the Jsonline blogs. But if you want to defend that type of posting, more power to you.

This is amusing. You complain about people posting uninformed and irrational stuff, at the same time you repeatedly keeping posting defensive statistics over a sample this small which makes them basically worthless. I and others simply aren't buying what you have to say on this topic, so in turn you pull out the i'm being so rational card while everyone else is just an idiot ranting for no reason. Get over yourself Straw.

[Ennder]

But again quoting stats of any type much less defensive stats over a small sample is just completely useless, it has no meaning. What Betancourt has done so far this year has no meaning at all in the discussion.

[strawbossisevil]

I'm adding statistics to a discussion. My point in doing so is to demonstrate that Betancourt has actually been playing better than expected to this point in the season in the field (all of the defensive sabermetrics are in agreement on this to this point). I'm not saying I expect it to continue, I'm just adding some stats some had called for earlier in this thread in our discussion of sabermetrics. That is called, adding something to the discussion. So many have posted about how terrible Betancourt has been so far this season, yet the go-to stats that would typically bear this out are saying otherwise. If you want to throw out all of the defensive sabermetric statistics (UZR, Zone, BIS etc) by claiming "small sample", fine.

 

If that is the type of posting that you think ought not be included on this forum, legitimate discussion of stats and figures (instead of angry ranting)...I don't know what this forum is actually here for, as I can get all of my daily ranting on the JSOnline blogs.

Edit: I disagree Ender, simply based on the complaining about how his defense has been to this point. If all defensive statistics (pick your poison) are suggesting his defense has been essentially average, it means that those in these forums may not have a proper grasp on what average defense at SS looks like. The point being, we should be more objective in our complaining, and not be placing a magnifying glass expecting gold glove play day in and day out. If we expect that, of course there will be plenty to complain about. But if we are more objective, to this point we would have to say that Betancourt has been thankfully better than advertised. Now whether he continues that is doubtful, but we can be thankful he's been able to play more or less average defense for the first tenth of the season.

[T B0NE 10]

His play today might be the worst I've EVER seen a major league baseball player look defensively.

[Ennder]

But again the sample size means everything, you can't tell anything about how someone has done this year from such a small sample. The current samples are just useless. Every stat needs a certainly amount of time to become useful and none of them have reached that at this point, defense takes by far the longest so it is the most useless so far. Trying to quote 2011 stats to prove anything is beyond worthless at this point, it doesn't even tell you how guys have played at this point because the spread of results are so random regardless of the actual skills displayed by players.

 

At this point it really has nothing to do with Betancourt, it is just misusing stats to try to prove a point using so few games.