Yuni Watch 7/31
Posted: July 31st, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 37 Comments »
Today’s Yuni watch is a lot about defense and statistics and is brought to you by the Detroit Tigers, who always seem to do something reasonably big at the trade deadline. I don’t know if Jarrod Washburn wraps up the American League Central — you can’t ever count out Gardy’s boys — but as a fan it has to be awesome to know that you’re team is going to be aggressive and go for it the last couple of months.
Yuniesky Betancourt on Royals:
49 plate appearances
.130 average
.128 on-base percentage
.174 slugging percentage
1 extra base hit
0 walks
2 sac hits
2 grounded into double plays
-20 OPS+
Well, a 1-for-4 day in Baltimore raises the ol’ batting average 11 points. I guess it was a pretty weak hit that should have been barehanded by Melvin Mora, but hey at this point I would never take hits away from Yuni. He’s hit a couple of line drives at people the last couple of days, and frankly I would like to give him credit for those.
The defensive question with Yuni, meanwhile, is fascinating. Thursday’s Royals game, unlike the revolution, was not televised and so I did not see this myself: But apparently Nick Markakis hit a scorching ground ball to short that (at the very least) COULD have been fielded by a top defensive shortstop. Among those who saw it, a couple of people thought it actually was an error and a play that should have been made. More thought it was a difficult defensive play but one that could have been made.
Betancourt did not make the play, of course, and that was a key hit in a four-run rally and another loss.
Now, I bring this up because I’ve heard from a couple of people I respect who watch Betancourt play live every day and are actually reasonably upbeat about his defense. He seems to have made a couple of nice plays — especially coming in on slow ground balls — and he has only made one error, and he seems so far to be pretty solid making the routine play, something that does not go unnoticed in Kansas City where the routine has so often turned into the comical.
And while I obviously do not have anything approaching complete trust in eyeball evaluations — more on that in a minute — there are a couple of defensive stats that sort of back this up. According to ESPN’s stats, Yuni is fifth in baseball among shortstops in Zone Rating which is a rather simplistic but not useless way to measure the percentage of balls a player fields in his zone. And his range factor the last couple of years has been right around league average (it’s a below average this year but, hey, work with me here). The Gold Glove talk that some have connected to Betancourt is pretty much indefensible sky-is-purple-polka-dot nonsense, but on a day-to-day basis watching … I could see how he might look to be OK defensively if you squint hard enough.
This is why the defensive question is fascinating … because as we all know, a couple of the more advanced stats show that Betancourt is a horrendous defensive shortstop — worst-in-the-game bad — and has been horrendous even in his short stay in Kansas City. According to the Dewan plus/minus he’s ALREADY minus-3 in Kansas City, meaning that (using extreme video study) Yuni has made three fewer plays than the average Major League shortstop would have made.
Then there’s Ultimate Zone Rating … his UZR is already -2.3 in Kansas City, which means he has ALREADY allowed two more runs than the average big league shortstop because of his lousy defense.
So what gives? Average or dismal? Promising or depressing? You probably remember Bill James famous point that the difference between a .275 hitter and a .300 hitter over 600 at-bats is 15 hits a year. That’s about 2.5 hits per month over a full baseball season. That’s about one extra hit every 10 or 11 games. Bill asks: Would you notice that?
It’s easy to say you would … but you probably wouldn’t. Or anyway, I wouldn’t. First off, to notice it you would pretty much have to watch EVERY SINGLE GAME because if you watched only, say, 125 games, there’s a chance you would see the .275 hitter have more hits than the .300 hitter. You would also have to watch every inning of every game because some of those extra hits might actually come when you’re off mowing the lawn or shopping for razors or flipping channels to see who is winning the golf tournament.
And even then — even if you watched every inning of every game and were paying close attention, I would suggest you STILL would not be able to tell the difference because the .275 hitter might hit with more power. He might have a sweeter looking swing. He might get a few of his hits in clutch situations that burn in the memory. Seems to me that we often talk about how baseball is a long season, but we don’t always consider what that means. It means that in baseball we enjoy the moments, and we’re swayed by the moments, and we long for the moments. But context? We get our context from the numbers. It’s simply too long a season to process.
Now, all that revolves around something really simple — batting average. Hits divided by at-bats. Simple and stark stuff — there are few vagaries or complexities in those numbers (OK, yes, there are a couple of complexities — errors, sacrifices, walks and so on, but generally speaking it’s pretty simple). But defense is much, much more complex. A defensive play involves a thousand tiny pieces — positioning, pre-pitch reaction, post-pitch reaction, speed of the ball, spin on the ball, situation on the field, quality of the field, luck of the bounce, brightness of the sun, glare of the lights, ability of teammates, speed of the runner, sound of the ball hitting bat and a bunch of other stuff.
So it’s much, much more complicated. And it’s much, much more subjective. Look there was just one Yuni play on Thursday, and I talked to seven people about it and two thought it was a terrible defensive play, and four thought it was a really tough play, and one thought it was an impossible play. That’s just ONE PLAY in a long, long, long season.
So my feeling is this: if you had a three big league shortstops (so obviously — based on them being big leaguers — you know all three are gifted in their own way), watched them closely for 162 games, I have no doubt you would be able to tell certain things. You surely could tell which one has the strongest arm, who makes the most diving plays, who seems the most sure-handed, who seems to go better to his left, who seems to go better to his right, who seems to have the best balance, who seems to stand in better on the double pay and a bunch of others things. I don’t think Dayton Moore is wrong — I do think you can tell who CAN play defense well by watching. But would you really be able to say who had the best defensive year? I say there’s no way. I say it’s like trying to pick between the .275 and .300 hitters … multiplied by about 100.
I say that if pushed to make that choice without access to any statistics you would do it one of two ways:
1. You would go by some sort of aesthetic opinion based on style and form and tools, which (it seems to me) would tell you who SHOULD be the best of the three, but not necessarily who IS the best of the three.
2. You would end up counting in your head … you would count “errors” or you would count “diving plays” or you would find yourself swayed by “clutch defensive plays” — this guy made a great stop with the bases loaded with two outs in the ninth, that guy bobbled a grounder with the winning run on third in the eighth — you would try to figure out who makes the most plays. And your numbers, no doubt, would be off or too subjective.
And that’s why I look to the advanced fielding statistics. They’re not as good as they could be or will be … I think everyone would agree about that. But they try (and often succeed) and taking an objective look at how effective a player performs defensively. Those numbers say Yuni is a disaster at shortstop. Flawed numbers or not, I would tend to believe those over my lyin’ eyes.
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“the routine has so often turned into the comical”
great line….
Thursday’s Royals game, unlike the revolution, was not televised…
That absolutely slayed me for some reason. Also I know have “Lying Eyes” in my head, I’ve had a long day and I hate the ‘effing Eagles!
Hi Brad, let me help – “it’s a small, small world”.
You’re welcome.
If one employs your option 1 of evaluating without statitstics, I submit (after watching far too much of Yuni for too long) that if you watched him for even a couple of games you would see that he doesn’t even TRY to make the routine play. He will rally for the big play, like he has some kind of understanding of what you articulated, Joe — that we will remember the big play and will therefore think he is an awesome shortstop. Unfortunately, if you watch him long enough, when a playable ball comes his way, you are already thinking “well, that’s going into the outfield” and turning to whatever distraction is on hand until the next batter comes up. Because you know he’s just going to wave his glove at it half-heartedly as it bounces jauntily by. You don’t have to and don’t want to watch it again. I’m sorry that Kansas City has to suffer this now, but I am not sorry Mariners fans don’t have to suffer this anymore. If that was the only trade of the season, it would have been enough for me to love our G.M.
Like that old saying goes, who are you going to believe – me or your lying eyes?
“Thursday’s Royals game, unlike the revolution, was not televised and so I did not see this myself”
Thursday’s game was like the revolution, then. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised either.
On a lighter, non-terrible Royals shortstop trade note, they now have Snuggies for dogs.
https://www.snuggiefordogs.com/flare/next
Joe,
I know when you say Yuni’s statistics are “worst-in-the-game bad” you mean besides Derek Jeter since you and your Fielding Bilbe buddies voted Jeter the worst defender in the game at any postion just this past year…
[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptToday’s Yuni watch is a lot about defense and statistics and is brought to you by the Detroit Tigers, who always seem to do something reasonably big at the trade deadline. I don’t know if Jarrod Washburn wraps up the American League Central — you can’t ever count out Gardy’s boys — but as a fan it has to be awesome to know that you’re team is going to be aggressive and go for it the last couple of months. Yuniesky Betancourt on Royals: 49 plate appearances .130 average .128 on-base p [...]
How devastated will Joe be if the Royals trade Banny? Will there be any hope left?
Watched the play in question on mlb.com. I would say it was a tough play that could have been made by a top defensive shortstop.
Trey: Hey Dayton, our bullpen needs some help!
Dayton: Well, we can take care of that! Let’s get Tony Pena Jr. down to Arizona and see if he can pitch. Also, I’ll trade for Yuniesky Betancort, because sooner or later we’ll have to try to convert him to a relief pitcher, too.
Trey: Sounds like a plan. I can’t wait to miss-use both of those guys!
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Yuni Watch 7/31 By Joe Posnanski I don't know if Jarrod Washburn wraps up the American League Central — you can't ever count out Gardy's boys — but as a fan it has to be awesome to know that you're team is going to be aggressive and go for it the last couple of months. … Joe Posnanski – http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/ [...]
49 PAs. Small sample size. Bill James and FJM would skewer you for your analysis. Just wait until the Royals give me 650 PAs in 2010, then you’ll see. You’ll all see! Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!
Brad K. wrote:
“Also I know have “Lying Eyes” in my head, I’ve had a long day and I hate the ‘effing Eagles!”
Dang! You beat me to the punch with the Lebowski quote. But that fulfills the quota for this thread, so I am much obliged.
I don’t understand any of these advanced defensive stats, so here are a couple of general questions.
Are the zones based on where the fielder is playing, or just a general area of the field. For example, is the 2nd baseman’s “zone” always 45 feet from 1st base to the 2nd base bag, or is it 20 feet to either side of where he’s positioned?
Depending on the answer to the first question, isn’t it possible that part of the reason the Royals defensive stats are so lousy has to do with the way they are positioned? Also, if the pitchers aren’t hitting their spots (fielders are positioned for a fastball away and the pitchers throws one inside), then couldn’t that lead to lousy defensive stats?
Best line (along with the Gil Scott-Heron- referencing quote): “…you know all three are gifted in their own way.” That adjectival phrase hooked onto the “gifted”–classic, considering the topic at hand.
“Seems to me that we often talk about how baseball is a long season, but we don’t always consider what that means. It means that in baseball we enjoy the moments, and we’re swayed by the moments, and we long for the moments. But context? We get our context from the numbers. It’s simply too long a season to process.”
What a perfect way to describe baseball…
Thinking back on the 25 years I played (amateur) baseball, and I can give you 100 moments… I can’t tell you what I hit in any given year, any of my won-loss records or even what any of my teams’ records were…
But I can still feel the excitement of toeing the rubber, trying to figure out what pitch to throw-or what was coming, of warming up before a big game or trying to figure out how I was going to pitch to a batter in a key situation…
Baseball is about moments… And the statistical analysis is why it’s such a great game, because–more than in any other sport–the analysis helps explain the moments, or at least gives perspective on why (or why not) they were so random, or expected…
Great phrasing, Joe… Thanks…
“Flawed numbers or not, I would tend to believe those over my lyin’ eyes.”
That’s because Joe is humble and doesn’t pretend to know everything about baseball, unlike the current Royals front office. Trust the process
I was at the game yesterday. I’d say the play would’ve been tough, but since the bases were loaded (thus a force at any base) it would’ve been nice to at least see a throw that could have had a chance to get an out. Instead, Yuni stopped the ball, but couldn’t actually get it into his throwing hand, so a run scored, and the Royals were still in the same situation.
I’ve got to tell you, Joe, and I mean no offense . . . but I much preferred the Banny Log to the Yuni Watch. Even when Banny wasn’t successful, at least there was rooting interest and hope that he could figure things out. With Yuniesky, it feels like what I imagine reading the monthly unemployment reports in the Great Depression must have felt like to FDR’s advisors.
I agree with JohnHCh, though I believe he phrased it better. Yuni Watch is beginning to take on the feeling of rubbernecking past an accident on the highway.
I suggest you begin a “Youppi Watch” instead.
Disagree! Love the Yuni Watch! Seriously. Gives me hope that the misery that is the Royals is having light shined upon it, that it may be changed. I’m cock-eyed enough to believe it actually could change (though the rational side of me says it never can under Glass). Here’s to Joe shining the light on the cockroach that is the Royals every day to eternity.
Man, I want Joe to be wrong on one of these Royals moves…..Come on Dayton, show us you can make the correct decisions instead of these ridiculous trades. Yuni is a fireable offense as far as I am concerned
Amen. Keep shining the light on this pathetic excuse for an owner and his sorry, backwards organization. It’s not lewd or unsavory to point out the absurdity of the players that are forced down our throat year after miserable year. At best, it may give ownership/management (who clearly has no respect for the fans) pause that an important writer (from one of the only news sources that actually still acknowledge the Royal’s existence) feels the organization is FUBAR. At worst, it’s simply therapeutic.
Admittedly I am a White Sox fan, so I can’t really quite feel your pain. Your general manager trades for Yuni and Coco and my general manager trades for Jake Peavy and implies that he wanted to beat up Frank Thomas.
Cautiously optimistic about Peavy. Scary to think that he is signed for 3(or 4) and a half more years though. Yikes. Reinsdorf used to refuse to sign pitchers for that long.
The big problem I have with the advanced defensive metrics is that they seem to be proprietary — maybe I’m not looking hard enough, but I’ve never found a detailed description of how you, at home, would calculate a player’s UZR.
With a James-created method, you could see the system, wrap your head around it. You could wonder why certain factors might be included or not, but you had the tools to evaluate the metric. UZR tells me so many things that don’t make sense when compared to other metrics that I really need to understand how it’s getting to the conclusions it’s getting to, and I can’t find that out. Because of this, I don’t trust UZR. Sure, the older metrics are probably just as flawed if not more so, but I get how they’re flawed and can compensate for them.
Have you ever read Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire?” You should continue the Yuni Watch until his OPS+ gets to 50 below and then let it die.
You simply can’t calculate UZR at home, because STATS and BIS won’t share the sort of detailed data that is required to calculate it. But if you simply Google UZR, you should see the explanation MGL wrote a few years ago on Baseball Think Factory.
Short version – the field is sliced into zones, A-Z for STATS and even smaller zones for BIS. UZR caclulates the percentage of balls fielded in each zone by the average fielder, subtracts that from the percentage of balls in that zone fielded by each individual fielder and multiplies that by balls in zone and by the run value of a play in that zone. It then adds the values of all zones together. That’s UZR in a nutshell.
Could anyone point to an online updated source for Dewan’s Plus/Minus rating? My Googling skills are failing me.
I know I can easily find UZR at FanGraphs and RZR at THT (which is, IMO, a little difficult to utilize since positional avg’s aren’t easily looked at without checking http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/fielding-stats-at-the-hardball-times/ ….though if I’m wrong on that, I’d love a correction), but I’m drawing a blank on finding updated plus/minus.
(“Dewan plus/minus he’s ALREADY minus-3 in Kansas City”)
Put me down in agreement with those folks who feel some of the defensive ratings lack visibility. As far as I can tell, in order to get good info on Dewan’s numbers I have to buy Dewan’s book. As a famous sportswriter you get things sent to you for free, or can write off the expense of buying them. But as a poor schlub forced to live 600 miles away from my wife and house by this lousy job market (and have to pay upkeep on house as well as rental) I’m not buying any books until the library runs out.
And for what it’s worth, I spent some time earlier today trying to find the scale of Dewan’s +/- fielding ratings. I’m a fairly good googler. I failed miserably, perhaps because I don’t know enough to search effectively. If I can’t even find out that the all time best score is +84 (Ozzie, natch) and the all time worst score is -197 (me, just for infecting the stadium with my lack of range) then how can I get a detailed number or come up with an effective algorithm to combine +/- with OPS+?
Dewan plus/minus data is available at billjamesonline.net, whcih is a reasonable $3/month subscription.
Every time I read something like this I say to myself, “This is my position on the issue and I only wish I were talented enough to express it the way you just did”.
Yeah, PWH we all wish you were talented enough to create original thought. Does Joe know you are reprinting his work on other blogs I wonder?
I think there’s a pretty big difference between a .275 hitter and a .300 hitter. James’ assessment suggests that players get 3 hits (or 2.75 hits) per 10 at bats week after week after week. Thus, no hot streaks, no cold streaks, etc. If this were the case, then yes, it would be difficult to tell the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter. But a .300 hitter will have hotter hot streaks, and a .275 hitter will have colder cold streaks. As an example, Justin Morneau hit .300 in 2008, Akinori Iwamura hit .274. They both had similar numbers of at bats. Morneau hat 187 hits, Iwamura 172. Morneau’s monthly splits show averages of .277, .336, .315, .360, .282, .243 from April to Sep. Iwamura’s batted .220, .333, .274, .268, .302, and .242 by month. They both had good months and bad months. But Morneau’s good months were better, and he had more of them. Iwamura’s bad months were worse than Morneau’s. This is how it is actually possible to observe the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter.
@Mark Daniel: “Morneau’s monthly splits show averages of .277, .336, .315, .360, .282, .243 from April to Sep. Iwamura’s batted .220, .333, .274, .268, .302, and .242 by month. They both had good months and bad months. But Morneau’s good months were better, and he had more of them. Iwamura’s bad months were worse than Morneau’s. This is how it is actually possible to observe the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter.”
Except you’re just proving Joe’s point further– What you are describing is LOOKING AT STATISTICS (monthly splits) and not OBSERVING THEM HIT. Appart from the ‘hottest hot and coldest cold streaks’ thing, which is nonsense.
barseball said: “Except you’re just proving Joe’s point further– What you are describing is LOOKING AT STATISTICS (monthly splits) and not OBSERVING THEM HIT. Appart from the ‘hottest hot and coldest cold streaks’ thing, which is nonsense.”
You clearly don’t understand what I’m saying. Looking at .300 vs. .275 over the course of a year, the only difference is about 1 hit every 10 games. Looking at these numbers, you exclaim, “That’s impossible to see! You need an electron microscope to see that difference!”
But a fan doesn’t watch 162 games all in one day. They watch games one by one. Month by month. So when Morneau hits .360 one month and .336 another month, that is two months of hitting that are better than Iwamura’s best month of .333. Also, Morneau’s worst month at .243 is better than Iwamura’s two months at .242 and .220. I know, I know, I’m using those dang numbers again, but I’m just saying people watching the games with their eyes can see the differences at times like this.