Ennder

I'd certainly be happier with this result if I believed that the Red Sox, Rays, Royals and Indians were playing to their talent levels. I still think we have major disadvantages in the interleague schedule which means this poor start could easily sink us for the entire year.

It was a very nice play, there are SS in the league that make that look easy though, it was a very slowly hit ball and a guy like Tulo makes that look routine. But if he keeps making plays like that it will hide the range issues enough to keep his defense close to average at least. I have a pretty big issue with the announcers saying it is the play of the year in all of baseball though, not sure it would make my top 10 list but that play by Jack Wilson a month back is an easy no brainer better player, there isn't even an argument about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSmUesc8RNc The combination of footwork and arm strength makes that a play that very few 2B make, the Betancourt play is still one that a good number of SS make, they just aren't quite as flashy about it.

I think Lucroy has a shot to be one of the better catchers the Brewers have ever produced. They don't have an amazing list of names in general but I really like what I've seen from him so far.

That was the entire point of my post, they don't tell you how he has played. It tells you the results of his balls put in play, those two things are not the same. McGehee has hit well almost all year now but early in the year his results were terrible because he kept hitting line drives right at guys, the results don't tell how a player has played, just the results of the balls he put in play. The results are largely out of a players hands and the results take a long time to correlate with meaningful measures of how a player is playing. A player can be playing great ball and get bad results, he can be hitting a bunch of weak balls that are outs most of the time and still end up hitting .300. The results need a large sample to actually hold a strong level of meaning. That is the crux of our discussion here, I don't misunderstand what you are saying like you keep saying that I do, I DISAGREE with it. Results do not tell how a player has played unless you have a huge sample of results that can diffuse the 60%+ of the game that is out of the players control. But I'm done with it, if people are really just worried about the results then I'm not really going to be able to discuss baseball with them, it is the same issue I run into when people want to judge players by things like ERA and RBI.

Here is the easiest way I can express why the sample size is too low to matter right now. Right now Betancourt is hitting .273/.309/.375. Lets say in the next two days he goes 0 for 8, he hits a couple absolute rockets right at guys and hits a ball in the gap that Bourn makes a spectacular play on. After this I would hope nobody really changes their opinion on how good or bad he has been this year. His line drops to .250/.286/.344 for a .630 OPS Now lets say the rocket shots find the hole for singles and Bourn doesn't quite get to the ball in the gap and he hits the double. His line raises to .281/.314/.385 for a .699 OPS So the difference between a couple balls finding holes and not finding holes over the season so far is enough to take him from a pretty anemic line to one we would all be ecstatic if he ended up with. When just two or three plays can drastically affect how good or bad someone looks it means the sample sizes are just too small to put much stock into. As the season goes on a few extra bloop hits or line drive outs stop making as much of a difference at some point but after this few games the stats just don't have a lot of meaning. If you add in things like a HR robbed or a HR that isn't normally out in most parks but it happened to be in the perfect park for it etc you just get something that is completely unreliable. Even without the hard hit balls finding holes etc if your opinion of a player is going to change completely because of what he does over just two games it means the samples aren't big enough to be comfortable judging a player anyway. A big game or two or a couple 0 fors shouldn't completely change your opinion about how someone has played. So yes the stats this year count and yes they should be included when talking about a player but no they aren't a big enough sample to somehow ignore what the player did the previous couple of years and no they don't even do a very good job of describing how the player has actually played on the year. All they do is give you a result which really isn't all that meaningful for measuring how good a player has been and certainly isn't very useful for measuring how they will be in the future. This discussion isn't even about Betancourt at this point, it is really about understanding sample sizes and what a small sample of stats can really be telling you about someone.

Depends on the stat you are talking about, but generally speaking never. A single season isn't really enough to discuss a baseball player and compare him to other baseball players. To use an example, I would have had a problem with someone saying Bautista is the best power hitter in baseball after last year. It looks like he is repeating it this year and that second year of doing it makes the argument carry some actual weight, but way too many guys have some goofy spike year (like Bill Hall) and it turns out to be just a fluke. You want to say someone is having a good year or whatever that is fine, but when you try to argue about how good a player actually is, you need more than a 26 game sample.

No these years starts are completely worthless by themselves. You can't say to ignore the previous 3 years and just look at this 1/6th of a season and try to make any kind of logical argument about anything, especially when you are comparing one player to other players over that sample Especially when we were specifically talking about full time players. There is no way the statement Betancourt is one of the worst full time players in baseball can be disproved by looking at the last 25 games, that sample given that argument is just not a worthwhile sample. Yet again you are trying to prove a point by abusing statistics and it just won't work. Betancourt has put up a 0 WAR on the year so far which is probably about what we can expect out of him. Very few of the other players below him on the WAR charts right now will stay below him or keep a full time job all year, that is exactly the point. These years stats do describe what has happened but they cannot be used to talk about how good a player is or isn't or how they compare to other players, they hold no meaning at all in that context. This is even more true in April since that months stats are always erratic in the first place.

These years stats are still completely worthless by themselves.

I don't know if this was meant as a joke or not, but this has been most of the crux of the argument right here. People who think strike outs are a bigger deal than they really are and people who place way too much value in AVG. Weeks has always been a pretty good hitter but only a decent player because of his defense. His glove has improved and his power has increased which makes him a really good player who could even take the next step into a great player if he can repeat last year.

He is pretty much exactly what everyone made him out to be, poor range, no OBP player who is one of the worst players to keep a full time job in baseball. That is exactly what he has shown and done so far on the year. Plus you can stop bringing up the only gets to balls hit right to him because I said it and I already told people what i meant by it. He has made maybe 1 play all year that I wouldn't expect 90% of SS in baseball to make, that is pretty much exactly what was meant by it. He has the minimum zone you will see for getting to balls in MLB, basically it has to be hit right next to him for him to make a play, if he has to take more than a couple steps it will get by where most SS have much more range than that. Quite obviously I didn't mean the ball had to literally be hit right at him, if people are going to be so nit-picky over everything said this forum is going to quickly become worthless.

I think our favorite charity is probably brewerfan.net's annual fund raiser.

His first few starts his Ks were down but he pitched pretty well, after that the damage has mostly just been flare singles followed up by big HRs, I really wouldn't make a huge deal out of this. He'll likely make some minor adjustments and be just fine. Every year someone gets off to a slow start and everyone freaks out and then the player is almost always just fine a month later, give it some time before worrying too much.

Our 8th hitter is better than Betancourt so a walk there certainly would do good. The only time a walk can be considered a bad thing would be with 2 outs and a pitcher up next and even then it isn't all that bad since it clears the pitcher, increases the pitchers pitch count and gives you 1 more AB later in the game. OBP is the most valuable tool a hitter has, outs are the most valuable resource a team has in a game and not giving them away is what makes good offensive teams. Making other teams use theirs up is how you have a good pitching team.

Because those teams tend to have more talent than us? Road games always suck but I'm not sure how good the NL West is these days. Even against the bad NL West teams we always seem to play poorly when we do a west coast trip. Atl and STL are just tough teams in general. I just look at all of those road series and assume we are going to lose pretty much every one of them.

Correct. This year he is like 13th among starting SS in OPS. Last year he was like 11th among starting SS in OPS. If that is replacement level on offense, what does that make all the guys below him in OPS?OPS is flawed in one specific way, it doesn't count OBP enough. In most cases this isn't a big deal, but for a sub .300 OBP or a really high OBP player you get a poor result. Betancourt is 19th in wOBA on the year with 2 more SS just barely missing qualifying which would make him 21st. He has been 3.1 runs below replacement level as a hitter this year and SS has a +3.1 positional adjustment. Stats obviously aren't perfect but he is roughly replacement level, maybe a little better, maybe a little worse but he is right in the replacement level range.

I'll go with 14-15 but I feel I'm being optimistic since almost all of those road games are teams/places we tend to play poorly at.

Escobar is an elite defensive SS in the making, he just still makes too many errors. He is certainly better than Betancourt though even with the errors. I don't know if his bat will ever be good in the majors though, I never liked his skillset. The reason Escobar is still starting is because he is young and has potential, a team like the Royals is all about the potential right now. Betancourt is no longer young, he has probably reached his potential and the results are he probably shouldn't be a full time player at SS in the majors as he is right around replacement level offensively and he is below replacement level defensively. We might be stuck with him this year but we should at least be mixing in Counsell once a week to limit the damage and I fully expect Betancourt to move to 2B or become a utility guy in the near future. Stats definitely don't tell the whole story though, in any given AB no player controls more than 50% of what happens and it is probably more like 40% tops. Baseball is still a team sport and trying to give individual's value in a team sport is always going to be tricky.

Fair enough, but I wouldn't normally expect a 1 inning type who has thrown 27 pitches over 2 days to come out and pitch another inning. I'd think it is the exception more than the rule, especially given how inconsistent Axford has been so far.

12-11 so far on the month with 2 games left. I hope I'm wrong about the 12-14! The rainout is going to mean multiple winners I think, heh.

This could very well be true, but this would also make him one of the worst defensive SSs in baseball. It just isn't a position where a complete hack can play. If Starlin Castro keeps playing the way he has as an example he will be moved to 2B even though his bat is great and he is a 'natural SS'.

I'd imagine if you looked at him vs the rest of the league his stats would be pretty ugly.

Chapman threw 3 pitches yesterday, bit different than Axford. Baker is also known for killing his pitchers so I wouldn't use him as my role model.

What you originally posted pretty much summed it up but I get why you edited it.

Why not? I edited the post with the reason but he pitched yesterday, he didn't have enough pitches to pitch another inning. You really don't want to do that with a 1 inning pitcher. I have a lot of issues with Roenicke's bullpen usage but this isn't one of them.

There is no way you leave Axford in there. Pitching back to back days when he is used to going 20ish pitches you don't leave him in.