As noted here last year, the Chronicle’s beat writer for the Stros, Jose de Jesus Ortiz, regularly reveals that he doesn’t really understand the game even after covering it for 10 years and writing a book on the subject. Here is Ortiz’s latest example of analytical confusion, again involving former Stros centerfielder, Willy Taveras:

Former Astros center fielder Willy Taveras stole his 10th base of the year in the Colorado Rockies 40th game. The 10 stolen bases would have tied for the team lead last year.
After a slow start, Taveras is playing well for the Rockies. And although he’s among the league leaders in being thrown out, he has added a running game that Colorado didn’t have last year when Matt Holliday, Jamey Carroll and Cory Sullivan all tied for the team lead.
Taveras, who actually missed the second week of May with groin issues, didn’t need nearly as much time to reach 10.

Playing well? Through a quarter of the season, Taveras has generated 3 fewer runs for the Rockies than a merely average National League player would have created using the same number of outs as Taveras, which is worse than Chris Burke (-1 RCAA) gave the Stros during his brief stint in centerfield earlier this season. Taveras has improved his on-base percentage to a respectable .373, but he undermines that with a horrific slugging percentage of .339 (the NL league average is .432), which is the result of having only 4 doubles, no triples and no home runs among his 33 hits. He has whiffed 22 times while drawing only 11 walks in 130 plate appearances, and his 10 stolen bases is more than offset by the fact that he has been thrown out 7 times.
The bottom line is that Taveras is a well below-average Major League hitter. Inasmuch as Ortiz does not understand that, his analysis of the Stros should be taken with a very large grain of sale.