strawbossisevil

Considering this thread is on page 20, and there are a lot of intelligent posters on here. I don't think that is the problem. The problem is there simply aren't any options available currently, it has nothing to do with a lack of knowledge about the players.

This could very well be true, but this would also make him one of the worst defensive SSs in baseball. You won't find me arguing that (see the signature). My point, however, is that there is not as great a difference between "one of the worst" and "average" as many on this board (especially those in the game threads) seem to think. People think "one of the worst" and suddenly they are seeing a handful of plays every game that an "average" shortstop would have made, and that simply confirms the point that people have no idea what an "average" defensive shortstop looks like. And just because he is one of the worst, doesn't mean the Brewers had much that they could have done about the situation this offseason. It is one thing to be disappointed in a player, it is another to whine incessantly about changing a situation that is/was unchangeable. We had to take him in the Greinke trade. There were no other shortstops that represented an upgrade available. Those are the facts. So until an option for change presents itself, we should just cheer for Yuni, and hope he does better than his previous years' stats suggest.

Well, hopefully Cordero has a blown save in his near future...not sure if I'm seeing it happening though with the bottom of the order batting this inning.

Wow. That stinks. Now we'll have to score on Cordero with the bottom of the order...not likely.

Green had him up 0-2. There is no way the pitch should be good enough to hit that hard. Why did Roeneke bring this scrub in? Ugh!

So we finally finish coming back, and then we give the Reds the lead right back again. Baseball can be so frustrating sometimes.

I just wonder if there is something the Brewers coaching staff can do to help Yovanni recognize that his stuff is good enough to attack the zone, rather than always be nibbling and running up big pitch counts. Ugh...Green up in the bullpen.

How are the stats 'silly'? And how has not hit awfully this year? He's got an OPS of .605. He doesn't get on base, and he's hit for almost no power. If that's not the very definition of 'awful' I don't know what is. He's not scalding the ball, as some have suggested. His Line drive percentage is exactly at his career norm. his BABIP is actually higher than it was the past few years. His flyball percentage is higher than it's ever been, and he's not hitting anything with power. His ISO is .061. He might as well be a pitcher for all the good he's done at the plate. And I couldn't give a rip about 3 sac flies. Those are as much a matter of circumstance as they are effort. Well, if you want to get into what the stats say. The small sample of at bats he's had this season don't suggest that he'll continue to be a player who OPS in the high .500s or low .600s. The statistics suggest he'll likely be almost .100 OPS points better than that going forward. He has disappointed at the plate to this point of the season, but we can't possibly know whether he'll continue to bat worse than what his predictions suggest.

I think everyone knew that it was unlikely to happen before Ennder ever made his post. The statistics say as much, but this is the part of the season is where the hope for bigger and better are still springing up. We'll see if this season's stats play out according to what has been statistically predicted, or if Braun supercedes the predictions and becomes a triple crown leader. It's not likely, but still fun to be having the discussion.

Well I've asked for suggestions of who was available that could guarantee better results at the SS position, and so far the best response is "Nick Punto". Which for reasons stated above is a pretty weak response. If you who are making the argument that "we needed to sign someone better" can't even list one player who was available that could/would greatly improve our ballclub, I think it is a fair point to make that a better option was likely not available this offseason. When you go on complaining about the Brewers not making a move to improve the SS position, but can't list one sure-fire starting shortstop option that would bring such improvement, perhaps it is time to stop the whining until such a better option becomes available.

Making Punto the larger half of a platoon would mean having him likely start more than twice the amount of games at SS than he has in any other season in his career. If he were in his twenties, or heck, even his low 30s that might be conceivable. But he is 34 and on the downside of his career. If you push Punto too hard, his offense would likely suffer even more than it already does. And the likelyhood of an injury would also increase, which has as you well know been a problem he has had over the course of his career. Also, Counsel was already signed when we made the Greinke trade. Are you suggesting dumping Counsel (who is likely to be as good as Punto) and the money that we gave him? Adding Punto would have made a lot of sense if we hadn't already signed Counsel to a deal. Counsel and Punto bring essentially the same thing to the table. The ability to spot-start at multiple IF positions, but not a player you can count on to be an everyday starter. Another problem is that it is merely assumed that Punto even was interested in playing in Milwaukee as a starter at SS. He may not desire to be a starter at this point of his career, or he might not have even been interested in playing in the city of Milwaukee. Lots of assumptions are being made, about things that we can't possibly know.

I suppose you can provide links that show scouts claiming Punto is expected to be well above average at SS this year then? I'll go with the Aggregate Defensive Rating (via Fangraphs) which suggests that over the past two seasons he's been average, nothing more, at SS. You are overvaluing Punto's defense, at this point he is average, nothing more. And he isn't getting any younger or more capable of being an option as a full time SS.

Exactly, the most games Punto has played at SS in a season is 61. You can't go into a season with a starter in his mid-30s who in his career has never played even a half season at SS, and a backup who is 41. You can't possibly expect Counsel to platoon at this point. That is just asking for trouble (including injuries). Adding Punto would have done us no good. And if he is the best name you can come up with, you are reaching. The problem with the trade argument, is 1) no one is going to trade a productive SS to us at the beginning of the season. 2) We don't know if any were even available. 3) Even if there were one available, a team could have been demanding too much in return for what would have amounted to only a modest upgrade. The other problem is people are just stating "go out and get an upgrade somehow in a trade", yet no one has any legitimate names to add to the discussion of who that might possibly mean. The shortstop position is not very deep at the MLB level, which is exactly why there are not many available at this point of the season. If one comes available, it is far more likely to happen at the trade deadline when teams will be willing to give up expiring contracts for prospects. Edit: Also, based on your own arguments, I don't know how you could possibly say with any certainty that Punto is above average defensively at SS. After all, according to you, you need three full seasons of defensive metrics in order to know how a player does at a position. In order to get a large enough sample size (according to your own arguments on defensive metrics), you would probably have to include his entire career at SS in order for the stats to "mean anything". There is no way that you could possibly have a sample size large enough in order to make such a concrete and firm judgment on Punto's defensive capacity at a position he so rarely plays. Also, his zone rating (which I know you dislike) at the SS position (in limited innings) have been negative or neutral for the past four seasons ('10 -2, '09 -2, '08 0, '07 -5). In addition he is 34, and you won't likely be seeing those ratings improving at this point.

I agree with Russ. It is one thing if the player at first is Gomez and is taking aggressive leads. It is another thing, when you throw over multiple times when the runner is Casey McGehee with a 3 foot lead.

Arguing that he won't have enough RBIs because of Gomez is making an assumption...an assumption that Mr. Corey Hart won't be batting in the #2 spot as soon as this week. I don't know how you could possibly state that he won't be placed in the #2 spot with so much certainty, Ennder.

With Seattle he was still young with upside, with the Royals he was just a filler so they didn't really care. I don't really understand why the Brewers are playing him but I'd imagine he struggles to find a full time job after this contract is over. I think it is 100% understandable. 1) He was forced upon us in the Greinke trade.2) After the trade, there were no better options at SS on the free agent market. The only options were guys in their mid to upper 30s, many who hadn't played a full season of SS in years. I think some here just can't come to grips that there were few, if any, options that the Brewers had to improve on Betancourt this offseason. It would be one thing if someone hadn't already walked you'all through this. It is another to repeat the same old tired argument after having it explained and continue to call it "something that can't be understood". It is understandable, you just don't want to understand it, because that would mean you couldn't justifying the whining.

The question is "who is the better hitter", not who is the better "walker". I think Fielder has been the better hitter, but I think Braun will be the better hitter going forward.

I don't see anyone that is defending him calling his defense good (or if there is, it is a very small amount). The people that are defending him know he is not good defensively, but are responding to the people who are exaggerating how bad he is and being unreasonable about it. The level at which people were getting on Hardy does not even come close to what people are saying about Betancourt. Best post in this entire thread as it is exactly the point. No one is calling him good, or even suggesting that he could be good outside of a couple weeks where he got to a few more balls than he typically has in his career. And speaking personally as someone who defended Hardy's defense, I think you continue to miss the point. I defended Hardy when many thought he was average or below average on defense because that was unfair criticism. I'll defend Betancourt when the criticism concerning his defense is unfair as well.

If you dig back a little further in this topic, you'll find a couple of similar explanations. I picked Russ's because I remembered the author's name and because it didn't use a lot of stat-speak.I didn't miss the point. I just don't agree entirely. I think, when 4 separate defensive evaluations, all trying to be as objective as possible, come up with pretty much the same evaluation. I think there is far more value to that than "I've watched all the games this season so therefore I know that he is awful". Evaluating solely with the eyes is going to result in bias based on 1) what the viewer's previous experiences are (which I pointed out, for Brewers fans has been above average SS play for a large number of years), along with 2) what his preconceived expectations are. Those are filters through which we watch the games and it is simply impossible to be anywhere close to objective (myself included). My eyes told me he was a bit better than this "worst defender in the league" talk. So I turned to four separate objective defensive stats to see what they had to say, and each individually said the same thing, "He's been better than expected." Thus, backing my viewpoint up. This, combined with threads filling up with angry ranting about how horrific our defense had been at SS to that point of the season led me to post that people should try to be more objective with their criticism. I personally think many are complaining for complaining's sake. It is like the boy who cried wolf. If you complain when his defense hasn't been all that horrible, are people going to listen to your complaints when he is actually playing like the worst defensive SS in league history? I was willing to let my disagreement on this point die. Until Ennder felt the need to 1) post something he himself suggested was worthless (but posting it solely because it agreed with his point from a week ago - despite the fact that it actually changes nothing about the time period we were discussing to begin with) and 2) his ignoring of what my original point was to begin with (claiming that I thought Betancourt would be a good SS - something I obviously never once stated).

I don't question that you've seen most/all of the games to this point. What I question, a bit, is your ability to recognize what an average defensive SS looks like with any sort of objectivity. Especially when the past stats have preconditioned you to assume everything he does is suck. In addition, as a Brewers fan, we've spent the past half decade watching above average defensive SS. That has been the norm for all of us who have watched a ton of Brewers games. So, any step down from what we have seen is immediately going to be perceived as below average. I've never been one to state that I expected Betancourt to put up average (or above) defense throughout the whole season. I do think, however, that over a stretch of a couple weeks he certainly is capable of being a fairly average defender. I think the stats (in spite of their warts) all were in agreement about Betancourt over the first few weeks of the season. And I think it showed that people on this site were being overally critical, primarily because 1) as Brewer fans it is tough to recognize average defense (having been spoiled in past years by elite SS defenders) and 2) because we were told over and over before the season began to expect the worst defensive SS in the history of baseball. Like I said, I expect Betancourt to be a poor defender as the season wears on. I just didn't think he was all that poor over the first few weeks of the season. The stats backed up my viewpoint, they didn't back up yours. He's come off a week where I've felt he was rather poor in the field (cf. the play at Philly, amongst others), and the stats bear that out as well.

Whatever...you just lost all credibility in this discussion. I agree that he is a below average SS, always have. It doesn't surprise me that over a whole season his production will come closer to what is expected from him. But your quoting BIS (not BIZ) and UZR when a week ago you said those stats were worthless just robs you of any kind of credibility in this discussion. I wasn't trying to prove that Yuni was a better than average SS, I was trying to prove that his first 15 games or so were fairly average. I still, after how many pages of posts, think you've been incapable of understanding the point I was trying to get across. Your bringing up the stats now doesn't change my point. All they do is show that he's had a rough week getting to balls according to any objective measure of recording defense. That is probably a fair assessment, especially after the ball he booted in Philly. Either A) You never understood my argument to begin with, or B) You are only interested in parading stats into arguments when they say what you want them to say. Which is it?

His defense has still been bad on the year, BIZ has him negative now as does UZR. He just has no range and that is going to make him a bad defensive player no matter what he does. The best they can hope for is that they can hide it some with the shifts. So I guess those stats can be used...as long as they coincide with one's preconceived opinion of a player. In other words, they are worthless until they say what I want them to say.

I can handle a loss where we get out-played. That's fine. Tonight wasn't one of those nights. A missed call at 1b by West turns what would have been a 3R HR into a 2R HR. The double play on the contact play was awful. We leave the bases loaded in the 9th. We leave the guy who has an ERA of 0.00, with only 3 base-runners allowed in 7 innings warming up in the bullpen....while Green (who has been overused) predictably implodes. Poor fundamentals, poor managing, and West's umpiring = a loss that never should have been.