Yuni Watch: 7/29
Posted: July 29th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 44 Comments »
Got a few posts lined up … but before we get there, we have to do the Yuniesky Betancourt update.
Betancourt on Royals:
42 plate appearances
.128 average
.125 on-base percentage
.179 slugging percentage
0 walks
2 sac hits
1 grounded into double play
-20 OPS+
I think we all know how I feel about the Yuni trade, but I want to be on record: I don’t believe he will continue to be this bad. Or, put another way, I do believe he will walk. Someday.
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Fifth!!
He’s not good at baseball.
Those numbers mirror mine the summer I played fast-pitch softball on psychedelic drugs.
Whoa, slow down. How are those statistics evaluated?
What’s the bigger shame, These numbers, or the fact that no one outside the Royals front office is surprised by them?
He’s still a better hitter than Tony Pena and he has a lot of upside potential.
Hitting .128 with a lower OBP does not qualify as better than tony pena, even if it really is. Thats the sad part…..
And 42 PAs is not really in the small sample size area either.
Hope some of the upcoming posts involve the trading deadline. Some interesting deals (and non-deals) out there.
Tug Hulett envies the lines of Betancourt and Pena.
And for a pile for 3 A ball pitchers and an AAA 1st basement, the M’s have replaced Yuni with Jack Wilson. The also got Ian Snell in the deal.
Wilson is 32 and carries a healthy option for 2010.
His current OPS+ is 86. Yuni’s was 63 in Seattle, it is -20 in KC.
As you might expect, it is not even worthwhile comparing their fielding stats. Ugly.
I wish the Royals had traded for Jack Wilson instead.
a trade deadline story from joe if you didn’t see it.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/07/29/trades.prospects/index.html?eref=sihpT1
Couldn’t the Royals have taken Ronny Cedeno from the M’s instead? Ronny did not appear to be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree when he was with the Cubs, but he has more talent than Yuni.
As long as Betancourt wears his stirrups correctly, Paul Lukas supports the Yuni Watch.
Looking at these stats, I wonder if it’s possible to do a similar sort of study to what Joe did last week with the Royals record.
How many good hitters have ever had a stretch of hitting .128 or worse over 42 plate appearances?
Julio Lugo (debatable if he could be considered “good”, but it’s a good example) hit .089 over the month of June 2007 (including a stretch of about 40AB without a hit)
As Paul White so presciently pointed out, I am now in the despicable position of being forced to cheer AGAINST my team every time that Yuni steps to the plate. I hate you, Dayton Moore. (In a wholesome Christian way, of course.)
So you’re saying that if we stick with him now, he should swing into a hot streak for a bit? I could live with that. But uumm… how “good” can his “hot streak” be? Can we hope for a 51 OPS+ over a full month of August?
Yeah, but that is a gritty .128 with some real consistency. If I wasn’t mistaken we are watching the second Eckstein, which means our teams heart just went up 15%.
My goodness… has there ever been a team to better upgrade at SS in the middle of a season as Seattle did? I mean, of course there has, but still… start out with Yuni and end up with Jack Wilson.
It’s great to be a Pirates fan. Oh wait, no it’s not… Ronny Cedeno is now our SS.
In re the Sports Illustrated article: The cake in question in the expression “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too” (more commonly rendered the other way around “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too”) is no ordinary cake. No, it is a large, heavily iced, heavily decorated cake – as much a work of art as it is a culinary delight. It is possibly a Christmas cake, a wedding cake, a birthday cake, something of that genre. It is a cake to be looked at, admired, perhaps mildly drooled over. But if you eat it, it is gone . . . forever.
Another possibility is that the expression comes from the Inuit people, previously known as Eskimo, inhabitants of frozen lands. Legend has it that an Inuit hunter of long ago, returning in his kayak from an unsuccessful expedition, low on food supplies and his clothing becoming threadbare, was so affected by the cold that he decided to risk warming himself by lighting a fire in the canoe. Unfortunately, and understandably, the blaze got out of control and the craft caught fire and sank – thus leading to a piece of folklore that’s been handed down over the centuries, “You can’t heat your kayak and have it, too.”
Headcase he might be (Well, yes, okay, he really is a headcase…), but Ian Snell might still become a more than adequate starter in MLB if the right person gets to him at the right time, and then stays on him. Jack Wilson was not going to be a Pirate in ‘10 @ $8M/year so he was gone anyway.
Thanks, Jack, for being a class guy on a lousy club for too long. I think Seattle wins in this trade if they care to pay Wilson the next few years.
Re: the SI column. The thing that really irked Jays fans with Doyle Alexander in ‘87 is that he’d left the Jays just a year before, and if I recall correctly he didn’t exactly leave on good terms. His 1986 ERA was up by a full run over ‘85 so the Jays traded him to Atlanta. He did nothing there for a year so the first reaction from Jays fans when the Tigers got him in ‘87 was “Yippee! The division’s ours now”. By October 1 in Toronto he was better known as F***ing Doyle Alexander.
We’ve had some terrible news. Mr. Moore is in seclusion in the West Wing.
Might Yuni also be a relief-pitcher-in-waiting?
Maybe all of Dayton’s trades for bad position players are really intended to shore up the bullpen?
Yuni’s game tonight’s game against the O’s:
1st AB: Strike (looking), Ball, Flied out to center
2nd AB: Strike (foul), Grounded into double play
3rd AB: Lined out to third
6 pitches, 4 outs.
but he has had several foul tips…
Perhaps the Royals should have offered Yuni to the Indians for Lee….
The cake in question in the expression “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too” (more commonly rendered the other way around “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too”)
i have never heard it “more commonly rendered” in this way.
either way, the phrase to me always meant that you can’t (a) have a cake and at the same time (b) eat a cake. it’s one or the other. you either have the cake, or you ate the cake (in which case you HAD a cake, but don’t anymore).
you can’t have both.
All I wanna know is how much Yuni is making this season. Wouldn’t we all love to be in the show, making even the veteran league minimum, while stinking at our jobs?
I’m no expert on these new fancy baseball stats but …..I ‘m gonna go ahead and play devil’s advocate and say small sample size!
7: Spud said at 5:00 pm on July 29th, 2009:
And 42 PAs is not really in the small sample size area either.
Well, damn. Nevermind.
23: Logan said at 9:23 pm on July 29th, 2009:
Yuni’s game tonight’s game against the O’s:
1st AB: Strike (looking), Ball, Flied out to center
2nd AB: Strike (foul), Grounded into double play
3rd AB: Lined out to third
6 pitches, 4 outs.
Fine, Logan, be a negative nelly if you want to, but you gotta admit, the man moves through an at bat with startling efficiency.
The ambiguity of the cake saying comes from the fact that it has been changed since it was originally penned in 1562. In its original form, the meaning is much clearer:
“Would thou both eat your cake and have your cake?”
From this writing, the intended meaning – that it’s an either-or proposition – becomes apparent.
I will have the cake, of course I will eat it too!
42 PAs is a small sample size.
Call me back when he gets to 250.
I still expect him to suck. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he turns out worse than TPJ? I can’t believe anyone liked this trade.
Phillies having their cake (Lee) and eating it too (keeping Drabek, Happ, Brown and Taylor).
mike van beek @ #26
You are right. The first way is the more common, by far – I confused myself.
And well done NaOH @ #30 for the historical reference.
Joe sounded a bit like Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally – trying to figure out the meaning of “should old acquaintance be forgot”.
The funny thing about that exchange in When Harry Met Sally is that he’s questioning a lyric that is itself a question.
“Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?”
Should we hang on to the past or should we leave it behind? It’s kind of a deep question at the start of a new year and it’s funny to me that it’s become possibly the most popular party song in the English language.
per the phillies having their cake and eating it….
It looked for awhile like the Dodgers might get Lee, so if i were given the option that the Phillies get Halladay and the Dodgers get Lee, or the Phillies get Lee and nobody gets Halladay, i would be quite pleased with the Phillies getting Lee. they saved some money and though I like the catcher in the deal(in that i dont like their major league catcher), but I am excited that they keep drabek and their other big time prospects.
traditionally in Philly, this is when you take a step back and go “man, how can this go wrong?” Oh how things change after a World Series.
You forgot this part Joe:
Betancourt in KC:
FRAA: -1
UZR: -1.8
Pretty awesome stuff through 109 innings.
The sad thing about arguing about small sample size re: Yuni… in KC, he may actually GET 200 more PA for a reasonable sample size. I think most Royals fans would preferf the alternative: wondering how bad he could have been for three months solid.
The problem with the cake expression is not its meaning but the fact that people misuse it as an analogy. It’s most commonly applied in a situation where two things are mutually exclusive.
“I want Yuni to be the Royals’ everyday shortstop, and I want them to win the division.”
“Sorry, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
“I can’t decide whether to buy the Ferrari or the Mercedes. I wish I could buy both, but I can’t afford that.”
“Sorry, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
The expression simply doesn’t apply in these cases. With the cake expression it’s the same thing you can’t both eat and have. Applying it to a situation in which two different things cannot obtain is where the confusion comes in.
The Mariners are trying to see what happens when you ONLY have fielding.
This post was neither curious or long. Just sad.
I suppose adjusting for park effects would not really help?
@AxDxMx #32 –
Actually, the cutoff for “small sample size” is, in statistical theory, 30.
That is, assuming independent and random events, 30 observations is enough to make a statistically meaningful statement. Obviously, of course, that number may vary depending on the “normal” (i.e., standard) deviation one wishes to accept.
And do you really think another 200 ABs is going to help his case?
What does Willie Bloomquist need to do to get some props here? He was hitting .278 as of this week–better than all position players in the Mariners’ lineup except Ichiro and Guttierez.