Yuni

Hat tip to Adam McCalvy and Brewers.com.I felt the need to dig into Yuni a little. Pretty concerning what you read, this seemed to be a good summary of the issues. Perhaps Pops Donnelly could play a better short?

I received a bunch of questions like this over the past two weeks from fans worried about the Brewers' plans for shortstop. But every indication so far from general manager Doug Melvin is that he's comfortable with the Betancourt/Counsell tandem, and that he's puzzled by the level of concern about Betancourt after getting him from Kansas City in the otherwise-popular Zack Greinke trade.
"Getting Betancourt back was key," Melvin said the day Greinke checked in at Miller Park. "I know that stat guys hate the guy. I don't know how they can say he's the worst player in baseball."
Melvin might have been talking about Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski, one of the best writers in sports, who did mention Betancourt among the least-valuable players in baseball at one point in 2009.
Betancourt is indeed criticized for his defense, but like all defensive measures, his shortcomings are more or less serious depending on the stat. Baseball-Reference.com ranked 28 regular shortstops by "fielding runs," a measure of a player's defense compared to the rest of the league, and Betancourt was 17th at -2. Alcides Escobar, the former Brewers shortstop traded to the Royals in the Greinke deal, was a notch lower at -3. The website baseballevaluation.com devised a stat called "Field Value" that considers factors like innings or games played, fielding percentage and range factor compared to other players, and it ranked Betancourt sixth of the 54 players considered. But Betancourt didn't fare so well in UZR, or ultimate zone rating, which measures the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in various categories. Betancourt ranked third worst among 21 qualifying players, according to Fangraphs.com, ahead of only Hanley Ramirez and Jason Bartlett.
Betancourt also gets low offensive marks from many serious observers because he doesn't get on base much (his .288 OBP last season was next to last among 22 qualifying shortstops on Fangraphs.com). But Melvin points out that he's only 29 and showed improvement at the plate in 2010 from a terrible '09 season split between the Mariners and Royals. In '10, Betancourt's 16 home runs and 78 RBIs tied for Kansas City's team lead in both categories.
"I'm not so opposed to a guy at the bottom of the order swinging away," Melvin said. "What are you doing? You're going to get a walk to get to the pitcher? I know they say it turns the lineup over, but sometimes those [No. 7 or 8] guys have a chance to drive in a run in the eighth inning."
The ultimate measure here could be "wins above replacement," a widely used stat that asks what teams would lose if they had to replace a player, say, if he was injured, with another player off the bench or from the Minor Leagues. In the Fangraphs rankings, Betancourt tied with -- guess who? -- Escobar near the bottom of the rankings, with a 0.6 WAR. Only Cesar Izturis of the Orioles was less valuable, according to that list. In the Baseball-Reference.com measure, Betancourt is tied with the Yankees' Derek Jeter for 13th of 26 shortstops who played at least 100 games, with a 1.3 WAR. Alcides Escobar was last on that list, at --0.7 (though he's going to move up that chart as the years go on).
So, is Betancourt Troy Tulowitzki? No way. Nobody inside or outside of Miller Park is saying that. But if you go get someone else in a trade or via free agency, you'd have to ask what's the margin of upgrade and what else are you giving up? The Brewers don't like the answers to either question, so they're going to give Betancourt a shot.