What say the lot of ye about one of the more criminally underrated young players in the game?

AB: 565
H: 162
2B: 29
3B: 7
HR: 8
BB: 23
HBP: 3
K: 59
BA: .287 (.016)
OBP: .319 (.017)
SLG: .407 (.027)
IsoPa: .031 (.009)
IsoPo: .120 (.015)

(Note: "IsoPa" refers to "Isolated Patience", or OBP - BA, while "IsoPo" refers to "Isolated Power, or SLG - BA. For the rate stats, the standard deviation is listed in parentheses.)

And in case you're more of a visual learner:

I have to admit, I'm surprised - everybody loves Yuniesky, and I was expecting more optimistic projections. Instead, you can use this as a strike against the "this project is retarded because Seattle fans overrate their players" crowd, because it's right in line with other projections that've come out this winter. The average line is virtually identical to last season's, which you wouldn't think to be the case for most developing 25 year olds, suggesting that a rather large group of people are in agreement that Betancourt's skillset just doesn't have that much further up to go. Of course, .302/.340/.439 is still within one standard deviation of the mean, so, yeah. Just because his talent is nearly maxed out doesn't mean he can't put up better numbers (or worse, of course), and that's reflected in the data set. After all, a significant portion of a hitter's line is out of the hitter's control.

Interesting set. The only real improvement that people see is a 41% jump in IsoPa, but a lot of that is probably just regression to the mean; like both Johjima and Lopez, Betancourt was among the league's most aggressive hitters a year ago, and any time you see a guy occupying an extreme you can expect him to slide back a little closer to the rest of the pack the next season. And hey, Yuni put up a .040 IsoPa in his 2005 half-season debut, so it's not like this is out of the question by any means. He's a hacker, but if he's a hacker with 30 walks instead of a hacker with 20, he's even more valuable - and hence even more underrated - than he was last summer. An enticing thought, if nothing else.

Beltre tomorrow. This'll be good.