Delmon Being Delmon
Delmon Young’s last few weeks has carried quite a bit of hype and it seems to be all for naught. Young’s fantasy stock has shot up I suppose, but over the last four weeks his line was .280/.299/.520. The slugging is certainly impressive – eight of Delmon’s 21 hits were either doubles or home runs during the span – but that’s a .819 OPS. How often do you see players with ISO almost higher than their OBP?
Hit Tracker lists five of his eight home runs as “Just Enoughs”, which is pretty self explanatory in nature. Not all of Young’s home runs are pull jobs that barely clear the fence though. Only two of his home runs have gone to left field with the rest going into center and on – his weakest of the bunch – heading out to right field. During the recent hot streak he slammed a 447 foot bomb off Jarrod Washburn in Comerica, but Hit Tracker has that affected heavily by wind and temperature.
To make matters worse Young is striking out 26% of the time – a clear career high – while walking 3% of the time – a clear career low – oh and he’s still swinging out of the zone around 40% of the time. We know he’s not very good at defense either which means even if this hot streak were representative of the true Delmon Young, and it’s not, he’s basically what you get when you take Miguel Olivo and tell him to play the corner outfield.
MGL wrote on a similar player a week ago when he addressed Jeff Francoeur’s recent banner week, adding that taking a small high point in a disappointing player’s season as proof they’re on the upswing is faulty. It seems like the same phenomenon that occurred in that case is repeating itself here. Young had the tools and minor league numbers, but it seems his work ethic will be the fault of his career unless things change quickly.
“MGL wrote on a similar player a week ago when he addressed Jeff Francoeur’s recent banner week, adding that taking a small high point in a disappointing player’s season as proof they’re on the upswing is faulty”
But isn’t that you are doing here? Before the season started, the projection systems feature on this site pegged him to be roughly a league average hitter. However, due to his horrid walk rates and his slow start to this season, people have the impression that he is some kind of an abomination, when he really isn’t that bad (although obviously not living up to his potential). It seems rather hypocritical to say that his recent hot streak is meaningless, when you are putting so much stock in his cold streak to start the season.
But I don’t read R.J. referring to either player as an “abomination”. I read him saying that the recent high point does not prove either is on an upswing, i.e. that both remain what they have been-disappointing players given expectations and tools.
I suppose you could interpret the Olivo comparison to mean he thinks Young is terrible, but that is not implicit. A league average hitter who was a #1 draft pick playing the corner outfield is a disappointment. The “stock” is not in the cold streak to start the season but in the 3+ years of performance.
Good point
Even when he’s a league average hitter, his defense and positional value make him a replacement-level player. He’s terrible.