And though he no longer pitches like an ace, I feel this should be said: Jeff Francis = quality starter.

Whether you are right or wrong, I am not sure. What I am sure of is that I want tp punch you in the face as hard as I can.

Let me clarify. If Betemit is put in to face a lefty, a better hitter is being replaced by a slower, worse hitter with a significant defensive drop-off. I see no advantage in the move. If Betemit comes in to face a righty, he can be expected to get one more hit out of eight attempts, but is still slower and, short of a walk-off win, forces the significant defensive drop-off, but the risk-rewards can be judged and I would have little issue with Betemit facing a righty in a critical late situation, just because I want to win now, as well as in the future. That would be an easy choice if Irving Falu was also on the bench, a competent SS, but he’s not here and I’m not comfortable with any defensive moves in that situation, Getzie being the only realistic one.

“So, yes, we do see it differently, but yes, nice discussion.”

Thank you. Sometime in future, perhaps we can try to come up with useful percentages for the three major elements of the game. I’m still comfortable with half and half for defense and offense, but three thirds also seems possible, considering pitching. My major disagreement with the modern stat culture is that I think it markedly undervalues defense in favor of offense, but I may overvalue it by ignoring pitching.

Your defensive counterargument, I’m sorry, is weak. For me, anytime you’re going to counter an argument of mine with a variation of, “Well, just last night we saw the very thing I’m talking about happen”, I’m going to disregard it. There will be tons of isolated incidents around baseball you can point to to support an argument on a given night…I’m looking for arguments that cover a much longer time span than a single play.

Also…again, I’m sorry. 1B handles the most chances, so defense is important? Er, you do realize most of those chances are simply catching the ball? Catching the ball isn’t defense, it’s expected…these are baseball players. Defense for a 1B comes on scooping difficult throws, on crashing in on bunt attempts, on the grounder/liners hit towards him, and occasional throws around the infield. A lot of stuff, surely, but things that just don’t happen nearly as much with him as they do a 2B and SS. It’s not even close. So…defense, just not as important to a 1B. Merely catching on-line throws isn’t dependant on defensive aptitude, it’s dependant on having a glove and knowing how to catch a baseball, which I daresay many of us posting here could do.

RF I won’t argue much, except to say a couple of names: 1) Jose Canseco. RF is where managers hide their worst defensive outfielders in most games, and if a RF can hit like Canseco could in his prime (steroid-aid notwithstanding), then he’ll play every, single game, defense be damned. So defense just can’t be as important as you’d like to make it out to be there. You’re a Royals fan, so answer me this — was 2) Danny Tartabull a good defensive RF? And then after you answer that, answer this — can you see any manager anywhere playing Francouer over Tartabull in their respective primes?

As far as contention, the Royals have a .438 winning percentage, and they deserve it. The division is weak, but features at least 3 teams that are not only ahead of the Royals right now (remember how far back the Tigers and White Sox were at one point?), but also project to be better than the Royals are the rest of the season.

The Royals have 60% of their remaining games on the road, where they’ve been horrible. Just saying, doesn’t look good. Looks bad, in fact.

And finally, you mentioned the splits again…not sure how you can tout the 30 point batting average advantage Escobar has against Betemit as supporting Escobar is better than Betemit against lefties, then disregard the 120 point advantage Betemit has against Escobar vs. righties with the argument that it only translates to one hit every 8 at-bats. Your second point makes your first point confusing.

So, yes, we do see it differently, but yes, nice discussion.

Exchanging Aviles for Moose makes our team better. It doesn’t make us any more desperate to make a deal.

Any team interested in Wilson at the trade deadline is likely in the playoff hunt, and looking for a quality bat off the bench. They would be hard-pressed to find one more competent in that role than Betemit. And that’s true whether he’s playing five times a week, or twice a week.

In the past it was just the big boys who provided most of the juice but things have evened out & its great that everyones contributing especially the discussions that centre around Jim that evoke a depth of knowledge which is truly appreciated!

God bless America (its not all true what they say about yer!)!

Pitchers don’t get many outs without defense. We saw last night Santana strike someone out on a wild pitch and the runner got on base. I’ll stick with half, but will concede that the value of that half is extremely difficult to quantify. I assume that a DH has zero defense, but not sure how to come up with a defensive version of OPS that can be averaged with OPS to give a true value to the total player.

“But for a 1B or a RF?”

Next to the catcher, 1B handles the most chances. Using last night’s game as a recent example, Hosmer, a plus 1B, saved two errors, two base runners for Moustakas. An RF who isn’t good turns singles into two and three base hits and Frenchy, our incumbent, has half a dozen assists at the plate, runs prevented. SS and 2B usually see more chances, an average of about five per game on batted balls, plus participation in DP and SB, so defense is more important for them than for an opposite field OF. Middle infielders handle an average of six or seven balls per game, bat a little over four times per game. Not seeing an instinctive way to integrate that ten or eleven chances to come up with a single number, or even a defensive number that compares directly to OPS so we could average Butler’s .846 OPS with his .000 defensive number and call him a .423 Total Ball Player, as compared to Frenchy’s .786 OPS and, what, .700 defense, an average defensive number equivalent to an average OPS? Frenchy a .743 TBP? Carlos Beltran at his peak a 1.000TBP, along with Mantle and Mays in their primes?

“Royals in 2011 since they won’t contend”

That seems the conventional wisdom, but I disagree. Royals are a bad Soria streak from being a .500 team in a weak division and a good streak way from being in the race. That is what makes Yost’s job difficult, the balance between win now and build the future.

“I’m not going to look at platoon splits simply because anything at SS won’t be a platoon ”

The reason I mentioned splits was for pinch hitting late. Against a leftie, Escobar hits better than Betemit. Against a rightie, Betemit hits about .120 better than Esky, so can be expected to get about one more hit in eight at bats, so that might justify the pinch hit late, when a replacement’s glove at SS would have less chance of giving that hit back. Just based on eyeballs and highlights, Esky looks to makes plays on eight balls in the field for every six that Betemit would.

We see the game differently, that much is clear. Good discussion, thanks.

But regardless, I also can only look at batting average for a little while, because it’s a very misleading stat — I need to see the OBP and SLG along with it, at least, and of course looking at those numbers for Escobar triggers dry heaves.

I’ll also disagree with you on defense…it isn’t half the game at all. It’s important, yes, but half the game? Pitching, defense, offense…defense isn’t half the game in any way, shape or form. Whenever a pitcher strikes a batter out, the defense could be 8 of me out there and the result is the same. So defensive value fluctuates depending on who is on the mound, and certain positional values will fluctuate from game to game depending on who is pitching. Escobar, for instance, just won’t be as valuable defensively to a flyball pitcher as he would be a groundball pitcher.

Now if that was a bit of a misnomer, and you meant to say defense is half of a position player’s game, well, that has more merit, but still simply isn’t true. For a SS or a catcher? Sure, I can agree with you there easily, and perhaps with those positions defense is 60% of their value. But for a 1B or a RF? No, not at all — teams have done just fine w/o good defensive 1B and RF for decades, just as long as they hit well enough to make up for it. 1B and RF are offense-first positions, and defense there isn’t half the game at all, although certainly it’s something you want to have.

(by way of example, the Giants won the World Series last year while running out a mediocre-at-best defensive team most days during the latter half of the season, and that was fine because their pitchers struck out so many hitters, defense didn’t matter much of the time)

In any case, any comparison we make are moot…this isn’t a position battle between Betemit and Escobar at all. It’s Escobar’s position, and he should man it most/all of the time for the Royals in 2011 since they won’t contend. However, it won’t hurt his development to be given a day off here and there, and in subbing Betemit for him, it could nudge Betemit’s trade value up a skoche. The underlying issue with Escobar for 2012 and beyond is that he needs to hit better than he currently is to be an every day shortstop — sub .500 OPS’s just don’t cut it. It was good to see him have a double in last night’s game.

Does anyone know what next year’s draft looks like? After the red hot start we are currently playing for another top-5 draft pick; I just noticed that our run differential is third worst in baseball right now.

Also, how has Soria looked in his last two appearances? The results are better, but I can’t watch the games…does he look more like himself?