B.J. Upton's defense...

[SSUBluesman]

I've heard a lot of different things about how he is defensively now. I've heard things ranging from he's still a butcher to he's put in a lot of work and is decent.

[Three34]

He's played exclusively at second and center field this season and looks farrrrrrr better doing it.

The main problem with his defense was his throwing. He could throw hard, but not especially accurately. From shortstop, that's a problem. When they moved him to third, it was even worse. But at first it's been far less of a problem, because obviously he has less distance to go. He's still making a decent amount of errors, but they're mainly just errors from a guy that hasn't played those posisitons much - timing and positioning type of things.

His range is elite, he gets great jumps in the outfielder, and he never misses a pop up. He just sometimes throws the ball away. But he does have a really strong arm.

He's a good defensive player. People will just have you believe otherwise because they're so three years ago.

[craig01]

I saw Upton snag one in CF while playing 2nd base. I doubt but a few in the majors have the wheels to have made that play.

He just messes up on some of the routine stuff...although his errors have been slowing down.

He's gonna be OK IMO.

[SSUBluesman]

Thanks for the replies guys. It's good to see he's improved and is on his way.

[OSBB]

I think he's excellent at 2B, elite range, strong arm, great on pop-ups. His footwork has had a tendency to be sloppy but he's definately improving.

[Three34]

Here's a stat to note that thye just had on the telecast:

Upton had 9 errors at his first 27 games at second, and 1 in his last 21.

This reinforces what I'm saying about the errors - they've just been inexperience. His defensive skill and instincts are good.