Posnanski: You can’t believe your eyes with Betancourt’s defense

You know when my left eye gets to jumpin’, whoa, I don’t know which way to go…and neither does Yuniesky.

And Betancourt? Well, according to the Dewan Plus/Minus system, Yuniesky Betancourt on the Royals has been the worst defensive shortstop in the history of the world. No, I’m not exaggerating. The worst. In his first 27 games, Betancourt is a minus-15. I’m going to say that another way: According to the system, an average shortstop — not a good one, mind you, just an average one — would have made 15 more plays than Betancourt did in his first month.

Or another way: If you stretched that out over, say, 150 games, the system says he would make EIGHTY-THREE fewer plays than the average shortstop. It’s unheard of. It’s lunacy. Nobody compares. I e-mailed Dewan to double-check the numbers — these can’t be right. But … they check out. The computer using this unbiased data determines that Betancourt is covering less ground than a sleeper sofa.

...Dayton Moore has made it clear he doesn’t understand or buy these statistics — a position I seriously wish he would reconsider. You would like for the GM of the Royals to at least understand the statistics. But to be fair, lots of people don’t buy defensive statistics. Defense is a hard thing to quantify. There are so many factors — defensive positioning, the condition of the field, the speed of the runner, the brightness of the sun and so on and so on. It’s hard to crunch into numbers.

Maybe. But if I had to pick a side here, I’d definitely pick the side of the statistics. I’m watching the Royals play Saturday night, and I just saw Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera hit a five-hop ground ball about three steps to the left of Betancourt, who dived but could not reach the ball. My eyes tell me that he made a good effort but could not come up with the play.

But the stats tell me that even an average defensive shortstop gets the ball — maybe without diving. Add one more to the Betancourt minus column.