Here&rsquo;s the question: How much do you really see when you&rsquo;re watching a baseball game? There&rsquo;s a point to this question &hellip; and the point will lead to the defense of Kansas City Royals shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt. But let&rsquo;s take it a bit more slowly.</p><p>How much do you see? This is a question that people think a lot about in football, of course, because football is such a complicated sport with 22 things happening at once and nobody entirely certain what anyone else is doing. This is why every postgame football press conference sounds exactly the same.</p><p>Reporter: &ldquo;Your quarterback was sacked seven times, what was the problem?&rdquo;</p><p>Coach: No idea. We&rsquo;ll have to look at the film.</p><p>Reporter: &ldquo;It looked like your defensive line was getting pushed off the ball.&rdquo;</p><p>Coach: I couldn&rsquo;t really see that from where I was standing. We&rsquo;ll look at the film.</p><p>Reporter: &ldquo;What happened on the touchdown play?&rdquo;</p><p>Coach: Not a clue. You probably saw it better than I did.</p><p>And so on. You get the feeling that football coaches would be better off just watching the game at home and talking to the players through that speaker that Charlie used to talk to the Angels. But, anyway, we all know that football is a bewildering game, and a play can work or fail based on the smallest little thing like a quarterback not staying with a fake or a receiver on the other side of the field not running out his route or a safety jumping the short crossing pattern and letting someone slip behind him. It&rsquo;s impossible to see everything on a football field. Same with basketball, where 10 people are moving all at once. Same with hockey, with the line shifts and quick action.</p><p>But what about baseball? Most people would tell you that they see pretty much the whole baseball game &mdash; after all, baseball doesn&rsquo;t seem to have too many complexities. You have a pitcher and you have a hitter. That&rsquo;s where the action is. Yes, behind the pitcher you have seven fielders who have been positioned carefully to have the best chance to make a play on a batted ball. But mostly, we have come to see baseball as a duel between pitcher and hitter, and in general we don&rsquo;t pay too much attention to the fielders until a baseball is hit their way.</p><p>OK. So based on what you&rsquo;ve seen: How well do you think Yuniesky Betancourt has been playing defense for the Kansas City Royals? The Royals traded for Betancourt about a month ago, and there was a lot of noise after the deal because, well, mainly because Betancourt has a lot of apparent weaknesses as a player. He doesn&rsquo;t get on base. He&rsquo;s slow. He&rsquo;s a measurably terrible base runner. He doesn&rsquo;t hit with power. And one of the big knocks on him in Seattle was that he played as if he didn&rsquo;t care. A pretty compelling set of weaknesses.</p><p>What Betancourt did have &mdash; at least in certain circles &mdash; was a reputation as a defensive wizard. You might recall that immediately after the deal, his old teammate Willie Bloomquist said, &ldquo;he could be the best defensive shortstop in the game, hands down.&rdquo; And Royals general manager Dayton Moore said that Betancourt has all the skills to be a superior defensive shortstop &mdash; he&rsquo;s just one of those wild horses that has to be tamed.</p><p>Well, Betancourt played his 28th game with the Royals last night &hellip; and what have you seen so far? He has only made two errors, so that&rsquo;s not too bad. He has made a couple of nice plays. He doesn&rsquo;t seem to get to a lot of balls, true, but he doesn&rsquo;t tend to do incredibly stupid things either. He&rsquo;s hitting about .215, so he still can&rsquo;t hit and he still can&rsquo;t run. But when you watch him play defense, it&rsquo;s easy to come away thinking: &ldquo;Eh, nothing really stands out, but he&rsquo;s not bad.&rdquo;