Upton’s defense

[Rollinghard]

He runs with long beautiful strides, very similar to Garret Anderson. But unlike GA, he just can't catch the ball.

[Pujols4MVP]

He makes me miss Lazy GA in LF.

[The Ghost of Bob Starr]

I watched one play last night.  He apparently ignored Trout’s call on a fly ball.  Parker was acting like 2002 Percy after that flyball to Erstad.  

 

Turned it off. 

[Docwaukee]

He's actually got really good range but terrible hands.  A combo that leads to some spectacular misses.  So when he fails, it's very memorable.  but he'll actually make some plays that a lot of LFers won't which aren't viewed as nice plays because they still look awkward.  The end result is avg to a bit below avg defense.  

the fact that he was a GG finalist says more about the GG than it does about Upton's obviously mediocre defense.  

[disarcina]

Upton is a gold glove at DH.

[ten ocho recon scout]

Off topic. Is it me, or has Simmons' defense been a little iffy lately? Im probably just spoiled. I dont catch too many games because of work. But in the last week ive seen 3 separate ugly, ugly plays by him.

And yes, Upton is horrible out there. 

[Inside Pitch]

On 7/15/2018 at 8:31 AM, eaterfan said:

I love it that whenever a guy is bad in defense it's the metrics that are wrong even when they say he's bad. People are just always looking for reasons to blast defensive metrics.

People like to bash data -- even as it's grown in relevance throughout baseball.  

[Inside Pitch]

On 7/15/2018 at 8:44 AM, JarsOfClay said:

Upton had an excellent .9 dwar when he was with the tigers, then came to the angels and had a -.6 dwar.

He all of a sudden forgot how to hit and defend like every player that comes to the angels

Or he's as streaky with the glove as he is the bat.  The issue with defense is that there are fewer defensive opportunities than there are offensive ones -- so, a guy has a string of bad plays and you could be talking about a weeks worth of games .vs five at bats all in the same game.

[GrittyVeterans]

He just strikes me as a space cadet out there. He's clearly athletic and talented out there but I can't believe a 10 year veteran does some of the things he does on a routine basis. Not giving way to the center fielder, dropping balls that he got to in plenty of time, etc