Comments on: Position Roundtables: Starting Shortstop

By: vj

vj — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 09:16:15 +0000

(I hope someone still reads this since the post isn’t new…)
A question on the defensive infield lineup: Since the Ms will have two good to great defenders (Beltre, Betancourt) and two mediocre to bad ones (Lopez – or god-forbid Bloomquist -, Sexson), would it be a good idea to switch Lopez and Betancourt so that each of the weaker defenders has one of the better ones next to him? Or are there so many more balls hit to short that this trumps any advantage of better spreading the defensive range? And could this be an issue influenced by the batters’ and pitchers’ handedness?

By: doorbot

doorbot — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 02:45:23 +0000

Gotta say the first thing I noticed about the Pecota comps Dave listed was the ring they all share Now if Yu-bet can “progress” like that with them…

By: chrisisasavage

chrisisasavage — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 23:16:20 +0000

IIRC, Yubet hit 27% of his MLB hits for XBH. I can look when I get home, but I believe that’s correct. I dont think that’s too high, but until I can pull up Lahmans database and get the AL average, not sure. I think Lopez hit something like 45%. That’s some power by any stretch. We’ll see how they do from here on out.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 20:16:07 +0000

All I know is he seemed to have a live bat and he hit the ball very hard in the gaps fairly regularly for extra base hits. I’m not going to look at his stats, because I don’t the facts to get in the way of my recollection.

By: msb

msb — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 19:28:31 +0000

[ot]

By: toonprivate

toonprivate — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:31:16 +0000

Advanced training — weights, plyometrics, nutrition, etc. — might change YuBet’s potential outcomes considerably. I’m assuming that he hasn’t done concentrated work on his body… and if that’s true, then he has a LOT of room for improvement.

By: Evan

Evan — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:35:52 +0000

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Betancourt play a full season and hit zero homeruns.

But he might manage 21 triples or something crazy like that.

By: Mat

Mat — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:32:46 +0000

“Betancourt is a swing-at-everything hack. ThatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s not really disputable.”

Sure, but there are degrees to everything, no? It looks to me like Betancourt could pretty reasonably put up a line of 2 walks per 5 K’s. 0.4 BB/K puts him at about 20th percentile in the league amongst qualified hitters last year. That’s pretty low, but it’s not like he’ll be a historically bad hacker. If things broke right for him, I could even see him posting a league-average 0.5 BB/K for a couple of seasons.

And even at that, his strikeout rate is high, but it’s not *that* high. If you’re going to be a swinging at everything, it’s a nice feature if you can make contact fairly often and you’re speedy. So, he’s a hacker, but he’s not going to put anything up like Alfonso Soriano’s 125 K/33 BB line last year. (And hopefully that means he’ll do better than Soriano’s .224/.265/.374 line away from Arlington last year.)

It did make me laugh when I saw his -31.5 VORP for 2003 on his PECOTA card. That probably has, oh, about nothing to do with how well he’ll do this year.

By: msb

msb — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 05:35:17 +0000

and someone at FanFest did invoke Omar, but darned if I can remember who….

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 05:11:20 +0000

There’s absolutely no evidence that his September is any more a sign of his true talent level than his July or August. In fact, there’s been numerous studies done that essentially show that “monthly trends” are a giant myth born out of people reading far too much into tiny samples.

Betancourt is a swing-at-everything hack. That’s not really disputable. Thankfully, the rest of his skills, primarily his defense, are good enough to more than compensate.