Our 3B Defense is Atrocious!

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

I will stick with my original statement that Beckham is a "serious defensive liability" (please quote me correctly if you are going to quote me) at shortstop because he is. Mountcastle can not play there because is physically unable. Therein lays the difference; Mountcastle's sub-par throwing arm is a "crippling liability."

Your argument is semantics. You don't like the connotations. Your personal fine tuning is ýour preference and it's fine by me if you stick by them. I think my words accurately express my opinion to the majority of readers and I will stick by my original statement.

Sorry, was unintentional. 

I don't think your statement is at all accurate.  This isn't a matter of semantics it is a matter of Beckham grading fairly well on defensive metrics for his career at short.  I think what we have here is posters that put too much emphasis on fielding percentage.

Folks here have gotten used to the style of defense you see from Hardy and Beckham's style is strong in other areas that are harder for the layman to evaluate. 

I don't think there is a grading scale other than the "eye test" that groups Beckham with the leagues works defenders at short.

[amdcpus]

21 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

I think the priority for the Orioles was Gentry's strong outfield defense over Flaherty's "efficiency."

I'd take Gentry over Flaherty every single day of the week.

[Beef Supreme]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sorry, was unintentional. 

I don't think your statement is at all accurate.  This isn't a matter of semantics it is a matter of Beckham grading fairly well on defensive metrics for his career at short.  I think what we have here is posters that put too much emphasis on fielding percentage.

Folks here have gotten used to the style of defense you see from Hardy and Beckham's style is strong in other areas that are harder for the layman to evaluate. 

I don't think there is a grading scale other than the "eye test" that groups Beckham with the leagues works defenders at short.

So I understand with whom I am speaking, are you a professional baseball scout or member of an analytics department?

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

So I understand with whom I am speaking, are you a professional baseball scout or member of an analytics department?

Nope, I would certainly count myself as a layman.

[T-Bone]

Why can't we move Davis to 3b? He played well a few years back when Manny was out and it might help him relax some offensively focusing on playing a different position. Then move Beckham to 2b and Mancini to first thus opening up an of spot for one of hot minor league of's? Why can't we be creative instead of the same old crap?

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, T-Bone said:

Why can't we move Davis to 3b? He played well a few years back when Manny was out and it might help him relax some offensively focusing on playing a different position. Then move Beckham to 2b and Mancini to first thus opening up an of spot for one of hot minor league of's? Why can't we be creative instead of the same old crap?

Davis didn't "play well" there a few years ago and his athleticism is down sharply since then.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Lol, you are the king of not ready to judge anyone.

Yes, it’s true, I’m very slow to judge players.    But at least partly that’s because I’ve watched a lot of streaky players in my 50+ years of watching baseball so I like to have a lot of data.   

As to Beckham, you say he may not be more than a .720ish hitter, and I don’t necessarily disagree.   The guy has a .737 OPS in 1088 PA and he’s 28 years old, so I’m not really expecting some quantum leap from him.    But right now he’s at .479 OPS, and I have every reason to think he’s better than that.

As to Myers, I don’t put any long term stock in his numbers after two starts, and I’ve never laid eyes on him.    Any opinion I have of him comes from his stat line last year and the complimentary things you, Luke and a few others have said.    So in other words, I have a favorable opinion of him, based on second hand information, and I think Tampa is very good at developing pitchers, so I like his chances.    I only cited his numbers to illustrate that it’s too early in the year to judge how someone’s 2018 performance will go.

 

[Beef Supreme]

5 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Nope, I would certainly count myself as a layman.

14 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Folks here have gotten used to the style of defense you see from Hardy and Beckham's style is strong in other areas that are harder for the layman to evaluate.

Ok, for you as a layman, it has been harder for you to evaluate how Beckham's style is strong in other areas than we see from Hardy's style of defense.
You eschew fielding percentage and that's OK but .963 is far lower than I expected prior to checking just now.
Watching him play is no good either.
The most flattering metrics I can find show him battling shortstop to a draw except for him being way below league average in range factor.
As a fellow layman, what makes you convinced that Beckham is a good defensive shortstop?

[interloper]

23 hours ago, Frobby said:

Yeah, we’d be having our errors at SS instead.   That’d be much better.  

Maybe the data doesn't back it up, but I find 3B to be an immensely more important defensive position than SS. Just me.

[Can_of_corn]

38 minutes ago, Beef Supreme said:

Ok, for you as a layman, it has been harder for you to evaluate how Beckham's style is strong in other areas than we see from Hardy's style of defense.
You eschew fielding percentage and that's OK but .963 is far lower than I expected prior to checking just now.
Watching him play is no good either.
The most flattering metrics I can find show him battling shortstop to a draw except for him being way below league average in range factor.
As a fellow layman, what makes you convinced that Beckham is a good defensive shortstop?

You spoke of me quoting you incorrectly and I agreed that I did misquote you.

Did I call him a good shotstop?

 

[spiritof66]

58 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Davis didn't "play well" there a few years ago and his athleticism is down sharply since then.

Davis was a real bad third baseman. I can understand saying he "played well" there in 2014 (at age 28), but only relative to very, very low expectations.

Deciding whether to put Davis or Valencia at third is like deciding whether Tillman or Wright is your fifth starter. If you're trying to be a decent baseball team, you'd better find another option.  (And Pedro Alvarez doesn't qualify.)

[wildbillhiccup]

I love how you all were lighting me up when I criticized the Valencia signing. He's a another positionless player. Typical terrible Oriole's bottom feeder signing. And I still don't understand why what Manny wants even matters. He's not resigning. We should have stuck him at 3B and told him to suck it up. It's not the team's job to sell him as a legitimate SS candidate to his suitors. 

[wildbillhiccup]

1 hour ago, T-Bone said:

Why can't we move Davis to 3b? He played well a few years back when Manny was out and it might help him relax some offensively focusing on playing a different position. Then move Beckham to 2b and Mancini to first thus opening up an of spot for one of hot minor league of's? Why can't we be creative instead of the same old crap?

Davis' only selling point is his 1B defense. That's it. If you shift him to 3B then you have no justification for playing him because he's most certainly not in the lineup for his bat. He's our Ryan Howard and we're stuck with him. 

[El Gordo]

I

3 hours ago, interloper said:

Maybe the data doesn't back it up, but I find 3B to be an immensely more important defensive position than SS. Just me.

SS is for many reasons, chief among them the fact that the SS gets more chances on average than the 3B.

[SteveA]

14 minutes ago, El Gordo said:

I

SS is for many reasons, chief among them the fact that the SS gets more chances on average than the 3B.

Of course balls that the 3Bman can't get to are more likely to be turned into doubles than singles, so a bad 3Bman may cost a team as many TOTAL BASES as a bad SS, even if there are more balls hit to the SS.