Dan Cortes Called up by the Mariners
Don't know if he'll be worth a crap but would still rather have him than Yuni.
over 1 year ago
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Better than Yuni
Dan Cortes
Derrick Saito
Buddy Biancalana (currently 50 years old)
Freddie Patek (currently 65 years old)
Honus Wagner’s corpse
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Sep 21, 2010 8:30 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
oh come on
everybody knows that wagner has no range to either side and his bat speed has slowed way down
BOOM YOSTED!
by Home Run Tony Cogan on Sep 21, 2010 10:45 PM EDT up reply actions
he can still make a mean pirouette throw
every time someone mentions Yuni for team MVP, causing him to spin furiously in his grave.
I bet the corpse of Honus Wagner could still draw more walks than Yuni.
www.rockchalktalk.com for pretty good KU baseball coverage
I'm just happy Francouer's not our Francouer
for when I'm too lazy to come here, http://twitter.com/AtTheWall
Yuni is still making a push for
POY! The Royals only have Butler who has produced more than Yuni. From the expectations we had of Yuni, why continue to hate? He’s done better than I thought he ever would.
Give Yuni PROPS!
We expected him to be complete and total crap
And he has been….
by kcbottom9th on Sep 22, 2010 11:09 AM EDT up reply actions
but he also has been better than most SSs in the league according to the counting stats on D.
(I’m not a Yuni fan, I just want you to understand that he has been better than a serviceable player to us and many of us have blinders on)
Yuni
Top 5 in games played at SS.
- in putouts for all AL SSs.
- in assists for all AL SSs.
Not in the top 5 for errors in the AL SSs. - in outs/game for AL SSs. He has less errors than #1 which is Ramirez from ChiSox.
Hitting .260, 75 RBI, 16 HR, 25 2Bs, only 60 Ks in 542 plate appearances. That is 11 % of PAs end in a K. Better than league average. He doesn’t walk and has a fairly low OBP.
BUT he is playing better defense than ANY OF US thought he would. He is better offensively than you thought he would be. I don’t understand how your irrational hating blinds you to the fact that he is at least a league average SS. Because he is. And he has been better than league average on D as well when you factor in the counting stats. His UZR won’t be superb, but how does it account for the fact that he’s made less errors than half the SSs in the AL and produced more outs on D than all but one of them?
I just don’t get the hate.
All those tell us
Is that he is playing a lot. Which just redoubles the harm he does to the team.
by kcbottom9th on Sep 22, 2010 1:17 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
Garrett Jones has played as much as Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto
So Jones is just as good?
None of those guys
would be argued to play good defense. Not even Votto who is the best of the three….
The point was this. He’s played less than the top four and has still done better than them in terms of out production. Not range, not flashy, not OBP, but out production.
That says something to me. It says, wait, this guy isn’t that crap hole the fans think he is. They just have a problem with him because his GM made a move conceived as poor to the fans. Even if Cortes ends up being a stud, the Royals have won this trade to this point by a flying margin.
No, Yuni has played more innings at SS in the majors other than A. Ramirez and A. Gonzalez
Counting stats like putouts and assists are a function of playing time. Yuni has played more than almost everybody (many by 100 innings or more), so he is going to have more putouts and assists than many of them. Yuni has more hits than Alex Rodriguez — does that make him a better hitter? No, of course not.
Even then, the distribution of balls hit to shortstops is not going to be perfectly equal every year — some of it is random, some it is that a team with a flyball pitching staff like the Rangers is going to induce fewer groundballs than a neutral staff like the Royals. The advanced metrics improve on this by only considering balls actually hit in the area of the shortstop. And unlike putouts and assists, they take into account the balls that an average shortstops get to but Yuni watches go by.
None of those guys would be argued to play good defense. Not even Votto who is the best of the three….
Huh? Equal playing time does not make players equal performers. Jones has played as much as Cabrera and Votto, but is light years worse as a player overall.
That is the argument?
I thought the argument, if there is one, was how bad Yuni is. He’s awful. He was expected to be awful. He’s been one of the worst SS’s in baseball. CHONE projected him to have a 0.3 WAR. That sounded about right to me. He’s managed 0.4. So I guess he exceded expectations by a tiny, tiny bit. He’s horrendous. And at his (real) age, he’s going to be getting worse.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Sep 23, 2010 12:16 PM EDT up reply actions
You're using errors to prove that?
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
I said counting stats.
not just errors, putouts, assists. The guy gets results whether you like them or not.
And according to UZR and WAR
He is supposed to be worse than all of them. Why is he out performing them in terms of out production on D? (I’m not going to argu his offense)
But the whole argument was based around that Yuni is doing a much better job than anyone is giving him credit for. That must be acknowledged.
Have you looked up pitcher GB rates?
Or pitcher contact rates full stop. We have a shit paitching staff, they give our fielders plenty of work.
Excellent point.
How many K/9 are the pitching staffs (staves?) of those other SS getting in comparison to the Royals?
In all of MLB
In total chances, the Royals are #20. Cleveland #2, Minnesota #5, Detroit #6, Chicago #7.
Royals are 25th in GO/AO…. we are a flyball pitching team according to the data with fewer chances than all the teams in our division at making outs (does that matter though? And what does it tell us that we are behind everyone in our division)
Average groundball rate is 43%-44%
The Royals are at 42.8% bunched together with most of the rest of baseball.
Using chances does not work because it excludes the very problem that Yuni has — not getting to balls that he should. Balls that he watches dribble past him do not count as chances.
Thanks to the Royals staff’s low strikeout rate and the poor fielding that gives outs away, the Royals are actually second in the majors in number of balls in play that could conceivably be fielded — BIZ (balls in zone). Cleveland is first with 2336 balls in play, the Royals are second with 2328, the Nationals were 15th with 2157, and the Giants are last with 1983. In other words, the Royals have had almost 200 more balls in play than the median team, the Nats.
Using pure counting stats like putouts and assists are not helpful.
by Gopherballs on Sep 23, 2010 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions
They aren't helpful if you choose to not let them be.
We aren’t worried about balls he doesn’t get to. We’re worried about whether or not he has been a productive player this year. We all know he sucks. He could be the worst SS in all of baseball, but don’t sell him short.
He’s done more for this team this year than most of the players on it. He’s been a better player than any one has wanted him to be or given him credit for. I hope he never plays another inning as a Royal, but that doesn’t mean we sell him short.
They aren't meaningful
Those pure counting stats don’t mean what you are suggesting they mean.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Sep 23, 2010 1:58 PM EDT up reply actions
From Gopherballs
Balls that he watches dribble past him do not count as chances.
Chances aren’t counting against him when he is performing worse than other SSs.
Yeah
Counting only the balls that he got to (chances) and disregarding all of the balls he failed to get to ignores his massive range problem which is highlighted by his low UZR.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Sep 23, 2010 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions
Of course the playable balls he fails to get to matter
and those directly affect his production — he has not produced outs on defense that just about every other shortstop in baseball would make. Ignoring that is just more bad analysis.
Yuni has played exactly as expected and he certainly gets “credit” for playing that poorly. He has been a -10 hitter and -10 defender in his career, and that is what he has been this year. That makes him a shade above replacement level. He should not start for any MLB team, especially a rebuilding one, yet there is he is everyday. He is deservedly “credited” with being one of the worst regulars in baseball.
I guess I do not understand the compulsive need to defend him just because he has merely been his usual awful self this year.
It's not that I'm trying to defend Yuni.
It’s that I’m trying to get a few guys to think rationally. Obviously you and NY don’t need to because we mostly already do. I want the other guys to dig deeper.
Tell me also, if Yuni gets to the balls he “should” (and I agree with you on that), how many more outs could he have produced this season so far?
Define rationally?
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
UZR and similar metrics tell you how many plays Yuni "should" have made
UZR expresses the “should” number in terms of runs instead of plays made. UZR has Yuni at -9.8 runs (i.e., 9.8 runs below average). The -9.8 runs are composed of -6.8 runs due to range, -2.8 runs due to double plays, and -0.3 due to errors.
The conversion from runs into wins (e.g., WAR) is ~10 runs = 1 win.
0.8 is the rough conversion between runs and plays
I think it is a little less than 0.8 for middle infield plays since most missed plays there are grounders that tend to go for singles.
If you send polite emails to the Fangraphs guys, Tom Tango, or Mitchell Lichtman, I am sure one of them can give you a more exact number.
that is not accurate
Yuni is second in the AL in innings played at SS and third overall in MLB
he's 20/22 among qualified SS in WAR
thats pretty fucking terrible….FAR from an average SS
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Sep 22, 2010 1:29 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Argue with results.
I don’t get it though. Please explain to me. And I’ll have to check at home as this page will now be blocked at school.
My question is this. If he is so bad on defense that his WAR is 3rd to last, why does he have the second most putouts/assists in the LEAGUE? Is that not a result to you?
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not pro Yuni. My argument is that he has been better than expected and been serviceable for our team.
Oh
And less errors than other people.
Look at it this way. If his UZR is bad, then why is he getting more outs than guys that are getting to more balls than him? Isn’t that one of the things those stats check out?
UZR doesn't like his range (or lack thereof) but says he does OK with errors
6.8 runs below average for range, 0.3 runs below average for errors (Fangraphs).
And his WAR has been 0.4, which is “serviceable” I suppose, and certainly better than I expected he would do.
The only people who really know where [the edge] is are the ones who have gone over it.
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Sep 22, 2010 3:33 PM EDT up reply actions
And that's what I was trying to get people to see
If we would have taken a poll at the beginning of the year the vote would have been -50 WAR…. I’m just trying to show he’s done better than expected.
Isn't the book on Yuni that he doesn't get a lot of errors?
He looks good/smooth at what he does and makes the throws, but he can’t reach the balls that other SSs can.
yes.
But he’s still producing more outs than the other SSs. That doesn’t mean hes good, but he’s getting more outs than we thought he would… that’s what my point is. That he’s better than we thought. Especially on D.
He's terrible.
If ate shit and it was still terrible, I wouldn’t try to point that out. It’s still shit.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
You eat pieces of .... for breakfast?
Yes he is terrible. But we are selling him short. He’s been better than anyone thought he would be. That’s all I’m trying to get across.
BTW
Did your school’s filter just go insane after those comments? You didn’t ban yourself from the discussion, did you?
Nope.
Mine has no problem with SB Nation sites for some reason…
crosses fingers
knocking on wood
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
What is it about not getting to anything just 1 step to his left don't you understand?
He gets less errors because he doesn’t get to tough balls that might be considered errors like other players.
To explain your other point about how he has tons of putouts? Well that’s just the Royal pitching staff for you. One of the worst in the league equates to more batters per inning, which also equates to more chances for a ball to SS.
I’ll give Yuni this, the balls he gets to he usually fields fine. He has also hit better this year than I ever expected. Put it all together and he hasn’t been a TPJ disaster, but he’s still not good, and the Royals can do better hopefully. At this point, is he even as good as Berroa was after his ROY season? I just think we’ve been beaten down for so long at SS that people start to see talent where there isn’t any.
Your argument makes sense but the numbers don't match up.
In total chances, the Royals are #20. Cleveland #2, Minnesota #5, Detroit #6, Chicago #7.
Royals are 25th in GO/AO…. we are a flyball pitching team according to the data with fewer chances than all the teams in our division at making outs (does that matter though? And what does it tell us that we are behind everyone in our division)
And I'm not seeing much talent in Yuni.
But what I’m saying is he’s better than we thought. Which you agreed on partially.
Yuni does not get credit
for the expected dead cat bounce.
by Gopherballs on Sep 23, 2010 12:29 PM EDT up reply actions
Analogy
When you hear that your house got a direct hit from a F5 tornado, you expect that it is going to be completely obliterated. But when you get home, you see that the house was only 99% obliterated. One toilet (non-functioning) remains mostly intact.
Now, that’s a better outcome than was anticipated, but the difference is negligible.
That’s what Yuni is: a mostly intact, non-functioning toilet.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Sep 23, 2010 12:34 PM EDT up reply actions
And He Is
Now reduced from BNYS to F5.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Sep 23, 2010 4:57 PM EDT up reply actions
The problem with just looking
at total chances is that it only looks at part of the data (and ignores the rest). “Chances” are really just outs converted (either by putouts or assists) plus errors (outs that should have been converted).
So, the Royals are #20 in total chances. Where do they rank in infield hits allowed (aka – how often has our defense benefited from a generous “hit” ruling – an infield hit does NOT count as a chance)? Where do they rank in groundball hits allowed? UZR, as I understand it, is a better measure because it looks at all batted balls and not just the ones a fielder gets to.
Tension is the enemy. - Charlie Lau
by aHorseWithNoName on Sep 23, 2010 3:47 PM EDT up reply actions
It is but we are talking terms of actual production
Not imaginary production or shoulda coulda woulda… even without getting to these baseballs (that he should of gotten to, I agree) he has out produced all but 2 SSs in terms of outs…
That still doesn't answer
where the Royals rank in infield hits and groundball hits allowed. These are just as important to the discussion as total chances. If I knew where to find that info, I’d list it.
Back to your point of “actual production”. I’d guess that some of this is due to batted ball randomness on top of having more playing time than most SS. I believe (and I’m sure that I’ll hear about it if I’m wrong) part of what UZR attempts to do is eliminate some of this randomness and compare fielders (in this case SS) on the basis of actual ability instead of random chances.
Let me ask this – How many outs would Alexei Ramirez “produce” if he were in a KC uniform and everything else stayed the same? I just picked a SS out of the air here, but UZR would probably tell you that Alexei would’ve handled all of Yuni’s chances plus a bunch that Yuni never got close too.
I think one of the points is that just about any ML SS would “produce” as many or more outs as Yuni if facing the same UZR data set as Yuni has faced.
Tension is the enemy. - Charlie Lau
by aHorseWithNoName on Sep 23, 2010 4:35 PM EDT up reply actions
no, it only means he played more
Ajusted for playing time, the other shortstops have produced more outs. Yuni just gets the benefit of playing for an organization dumb enough to play him every day, every inning. And the nature of defense, even the worst players still make most of the plays. You could put Billy Butler at SS for every inning of every game in a season and he would end up with more putouts and assists than almost all other shortstops. Does that make him more “productive” even though he would have cost his team 30+ runs on balls he could not get to? No, of course not.
Again, this is no different than saying Yuni has been a productive hitter than Alex Rodriguez because Yuni has a more hits.
he has been better than expected....
we expected him to be the worst player in baseball, yet he’s only the 3rd worst shortstop in baseball. If that excites you, fine. It just doesnt do it for me. He’s a terrible baseball player.
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Sep 22, 2010 4:44 PM EDT up reply actions
DDJ would be a better choice for POY.
So would Betemit.
Or Pods.
So would Soria (I don’t care if pitchers have a separate award. If it’s so bad that it goes to Yuni, give it to Soria.)
At this point, regardless of the disappointment, it basically has to go to Butler. Only DDJ would be arguable, and it’s really hard to give it to someone who only played 2/3 of the season.
Pods sucked on defense which pissed me off....
but I hated more what he represented than his actual baseball ability.
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Sep 22, 2010 1:28 PM EDT up reply actions
Me too.
but I hated more what he represented than his actual baseball ability.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
agree. he never had a chance.
anytime you can predict that your GM might sign someone a YEAR in advance… you might have cause for concern
for when I'm too lazy to come here, http://twitter.com/AtTheWall
Wasn't it two years in advance?
But we all knew the Yanks would sign Tex…. and there’s no concern there… is there?
And some people hate Texeira for what he represents as a Yankee
just like they hated Pods for what he represented, rather than for how he actually played.
i don't really think there's any chance Butler doesn't win that.
R.I.P. cwhitman412, Frederick0220, & Mets2k9
did you see the Star article today about Gordon Dominating?
It gives the stats for the other streaks. The longest since 1952 is
241 Juan Pierre, Marlins/Dodgers 2003-07
so… keep truck’n Billy
for when I'm too lazy to come here, http://twitter.com/AtTheWall
Let me ask you guys this?
What does Yuniesky Batencourt Represent to you? And don’t give me a smartypants crappy answer that you think might be funny. Think about it and let me know. Does it represent no hope for our organization? That that’s the best we could get? A poor move by the GM? Cuba’s communism? What?
He represents a front office that severly misjudged the valuation of a MLB veteran's ability
a misjudgment so poor that it makes me worry that similar front-office mistakes in valuation, even if they are lesser in nature, will be a serious detriment to the team making the jump from perennial doghouse to potential contender.
You should fanshot that question.
The only people who really know where [the edge] is are the ones who have gone over it.
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Sep 22, 2010 3:38 PM EDT up reply actions
poor move by the gm (worrisome)
continued nonsense spoken by the front office about his supposed talents (very worrisome)
godawful play (not that worrisome, assuming they dont resign him)
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Sep 22, 2010 4:47 PM EDT up reply actions
It's the best (or worst) example
Of the Front Office’s lack of ability at evaluating major league players. They are not minor leaguers, and you cannot use the same tools based evaluation with guys who have been around the major league block a while.
Yuni is the most nauseous example. But see also Ankiel, Jacobs, Kendall… Ankiel has power! A good arm! Jacobs has Power! Kendall is a leader! They have the tools! They will “put it together!” It makes sense when you are talking about 19 year olds. It doesn’t when you are talking about major league veterans, and Moore and co keep making that mistake.
The other thing is a blind willingness to see what they want. Yuni has good hands, so we can overlook his non existent range. Podsednik steals lots of bases, so we can overlook all those pickoffs and CS’s. Ankiel has a canon arm, so we’ll ignore the fact he changes direction 7 times en-route to a flyball.
I think this is
spot on.
Farnsworth was 32 when they signed him, and he was who he was, but the organization saw his talent for throwing hard and thought they could make something more out of him. But what did they get for their money? Kyle Farnsworth. How could they expect anything else?
Yuni was 27 when they got him, and they made him out to be a diamond in the rough. I’ve heard several times over that they think they can bring out his talent by understanding the way he was brought up as a ballplayer in Cuba, always being told what to do, and working with him. So, hey, I guess that means if they just tell him what to do too, they can make a real major league shortstop out of him! But he’d already had 2300 major league plate appearances and over 5000 major league innings at short, and he’d amply demonstrated that he’s not a major league hitter and not a major league shortstop.
So he’s having a career year this year and made some memorable positive contributions to go along with the endless series of 5- to 12-hoppers through the left side of the infield that other guys would get. Great. But he was never a development project; that the organization sees him as one or even just portrays him as one is very alarming.
by 2X2L on Sep 23, 2010 1:06 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
To me it's a tough question.
Which do I dislike more?
Is that the Royals traded for someone they think is incredibly talented and no one else thinks that?
Or is it that the Royals cut bait on a promising young arm because of the kid’s issues?
He represent’s Dayton Moore’s inability to evaluate talent in Major League baseball players. Also, he represents Dayton Moore’s inability to recognize the value (in players and dollars) that a given player is worth.
Of course, Yuni is just one big data point in showing Dayton Moore’s incompetence in the above areas.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Sep 23, 2010 12:19 PM EDT up reply actions
Further
It represents two huge flaws in the Royals process:
1. They evaluate MLB players based on tools only. They disregard stats, or more likely look only at meaningless, misleading ones.
2. Their tools-only analysis does a bad job of evaluating a player’s tools. Yuni doesn’t have good defensive tools. His range is for shit. But the Royals front office disagrees.
Incompetence.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Sep 23, 2010 12:22 PM EDT up reply actions
What if we phrase it a different way
What if I told you I was going to bring in a SS as a bandaid. The SS sucked but he was the best we could get. Would you hold Yuni in a different regard?
Luis Hernandez would have been preferable to me.
No, he can’t hit, but he can play good defense and makes the minimum. Plus, he was already in the system, so he wouldn’t have cost a prospect. Furthermore, without Yuni Aviles would probably have moved back over to SS during the season and had better production. It’s not just about how he has played in comparison to expectations. It’s about overall value and the resources (prospects, cash, and playing time) invested in him.
by BrRoyal on Sep 23, 2010 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Alex Gonzalez signed as a free agent for less than what Yuni is making this year
Yunel Escobar was traded for Alex Gonzalez
Jamey Carroll signed as free agent for less than $2 million per year
Ramon Santiago is a former minor league free agent and career backup who could have been acquired cheaply in a trade
Wilson Valdez was a minor league free agent who was DFA’d earlier this year
Josh Wilson was a waiver claim
All of these guys have been better than Yuni (almost all in significantly less playing time) and cost less than what the Royals gave up for him.
Gopher
this half of the discussion is about what Yuni represents to us. Not if he is cheaper/better than anyone. We really do need to fanshot this somehow…
But at that point when we acquired Yuni the Braves weren’t dealing. Gonzalez was elsewhere. Carroll was elsewhere adn wasn’t being traded…. Wilson was an option. Valdez was as well.
Does it?
I think we should of taken the other options… but we have what we have and we’re arguing imaginary numbers. It’s like this algebra 2 that I keep teaching…. ugh.
Now UZR's imaginary?
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
BrRoyal
Good points. I always though Luis deserved more of a shot or at least someone who was a $400K guy that could play D.
He's not the best a MLB can get.
Especially not at the 7 to 8 million he’ll be paid by the Royals.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
What if I told you I was going to bring in a SS as a bandaid. The SS sucked but he was the best we could get. Would you hold Yuni in a different regard?
If he were the best the Royals could get, it still wouldn’t have made sense for the Royals to trade two genuine prospects for him and pay him millions of dollars. Yuni isn’t worth either the talent given up for him or the money paid to him, much less both.
Yuni was projected to be, and has proven to be a barely above replacement level player. If he’s the best the Royals could have gotten, it would have made infinitely more sense for them to not trade for Yuni and just acquire a replacement level SS off the waiver wire or in a minor trade. Those guys are easy to find and acquire and they are very cheap.
The problem is that the Royals front office saw a lot of upside in Yuni’s tools. And that is a horribly sad fact.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Sep 23, 2010 1:24 PM EDT up reply actions
very true.
I guess trying to change a phrase doesn’t work. I wasn’t too happy about the move, but so far Yuni has out produced the other two in the bigs. And been a waste of money.
The biggest issue is he is a perfect representation of where we are as a franchise… you know? I hope that changes as we progress, but for now, it’s where we are.
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