Comments on: Dayton Moore and Defense

By: DJ

DJ — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 15:30:20 +0000

I do not believe I’ve ever seen a greater demeaning done to a baseball player than for the dismal Royals to lock in the phenomenal Grienke to, not a ‘bad’ team but an ATROCIOUS team, not likely to be much better for the foreseeable future! Were it not for the disastrous bunch called ‘teammates’, Grienke should, at this juncture, be something like 15-2, maybe better. He should definitely be able to sue for non support!!!!!

And, KC goes out and makes such exgtraordinary pickups as Betancourt, Anderson, Colon…. That’ll change their future, Dayton!! And, you want to talk trading the likes of Teahan?!?!?!

By: Tim A.

Tim A. — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:41:17 +0000

All I was saying that it was a less “smelly” piece of crap trade. The royals have no decent middle infield prospects in the upper minors.

By: Tim A.

Tim A. — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:34:28 +0000

again… I am in no way defending the trade

By: JD

JD — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:21:48 +0000

Sure, they aren’t blocking prospects THIS YEAR. But Betancourt is in the middle of a long-term deal. And what’s the point of getting him to be a stopgap when you already have below-replacement stopgaps? As Rany said in his blog (someone got a link?), this team is not going anywhere. May as well save the money and the prospects and just play Willie Bloomquist there for the rest of 2009 and figure it out later.

The Royals got Betancourt because they didn’t have a shortstop. They still don’t have a shortstop.

By: JD

JD — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:19:38 +0000

What are you talking about? Tango’s “fan survey” as you so cleverly insult with unnecessary quotation marks was not taken yesterday. He does it in the offseason. Every year (for how many years now? At least 4). This survey wasn’t conducted after this trade was made.

I’m not big on the fan survey for a lot of reasons, but used in conjunction with the numbers and scouting reports, it is just another piece of the puzzle, and a great supplement to the argument.

By: Pat Cremin

Pat Cremin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:06:03 +0000

My brother is with the M’s…he would tellyou that Betancourt has degenerated terrifically since his rookie year, and that KC got taken. Unless Yuni makes a radical and long term change, he is just another out-maker who shouldn’t wear a glove, which is becoming par for the course for the Royals, altely.

By: Joe R

Joe R — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:39:16 +0000

True. I’m a Red Sox fan, Williams definitely wasn’t horrible forever. It was just flat-earth Torre refusing to make a change and letting Williams embarass himself (example: why the hell was Williams starting in CF in 2004 when they had Lofton?).

I still take my defensive stats with a grain of salt, but normally when I see a number way on one end of the other, I think it’s recommended to look at it. Moore doesn’t seem to care what every defensive rating (outside of FRAA, weirdly) says about Betancourt, but what it “looks like”. Just like how Nomar “looked like” a great defensive SS, until Sox fans had a taste of what great defense looked like with Pokey “unfortunately has to hit” (nickname mine) Reese, and later on O-Cab.

By: Teej

Teej — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:26:14 +0000

Yuni was a fantastic SS in 2005. How dare Dave point that out.

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:52:24 +0000

Yes, because Dave is clearly a psychic and should be able to predict when a plus defender will gain a ton of weight and collapse defensively.

By: cpebbles

cpebbles — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:38:29 +0000

He has made an attempt to get the word out on non-sabermetric sites, but I’m inclined to agree. It’s hard to be a baseball fan and active on the internet without coming across the advanced defensive metrics at least secondhand.