Delmon Young & Updated Comparisons
Delmon Young walked 53 times in his first 578 minor league plate appearances. Thereafter, he walked 44 times in 974 plate appearances. Whenever a right fielder with a power stroke, good bat control, and a strong arm comes through the minors with a resistance to the free pass like Young, you can be sure that Vladimir Guerrero comparisons will follow. Sure enough, they did. Fortunately, for Young, he managed to live up to those expectations in 2010.
Unfortunately, for Young, those expectations needed to include a disclaimer, stating the comparison only became valid once Guerrero entered his mid-30s. The 35-year-old Guerrero hit .300/.345/.496 while walking more than 5% of the time and striking out 10% of the time. Young, then 24, hit .298/.333/.493 while walking less than 5% of the time and striking out slightly more than 14% of the time.
After three consecutive seasons with a .338 batting average on balls in play, Young’s success rate diminished (to .312), but his impact increased as his ISO (.195) finished above league average for the first time in his career. Not everything is flowery in the world of Young. Matt Klaassen found that Young was one of the most average-est players on the land before showing how inflated his RBI totals were relative to his overall production. Young topped the 2 WAR mark for the first time last season. Before 2010, Young’s career WAR total was below replacement level, and not just because UZR considers him a putrid defender.
It is difficult to believe that after four full big league seasons, Young delivering a league average season is something worth celebrating. It is even more difficult to accept that this is who Young is, but ZiPS projects a .290/.327/.451 line and 18 home runs for the 25-year-old while also tapping Carlos Lee as his top comparable. Like a younger Lee, Young has issues working a count – if only to find his pitch. Lee also experienced a decrease in BABIP in favor of an increase in power output.
Morphing into Lee is not as desirable as morphing into Guerrero, but it is better than morphing into a jobless former top prospect.
It’s a measure of Delmon’s talent that he can find some success doing things the Vlad way, but the thing about the Vlad way is that it’s a really, really hard way to succeed. He’s still young enough to have some upside from 2010, but he’s probably never going to be the star that people thought he’d be as a prospect.
Luke’s right – plus, of course, Guerrero was known as a terrific RF, so Young couldn’t ever be considered a comparable player.
The one thing on his side is his age, which I was actually surprised to see, I forgot he was still so young…if he can build on his 2010 numbers or at least maintain them he could be a solid player in the 2-4 WAR range, but the BB/K rates are not very good, especially the BB%. Though his K% improvement last year was impressive, it would be great if he could do the same with his BB%. At the end of the day he only cost 2.6M last year, so he is a value in that sense. Top 10 MVP should get him a considerable raise, but he could/should still be a value for the Twins this year and next.
I’m scared that given the Twins aversion to anything sabr, they’re going to look at his gaudy AR-BEE-EYEZ total and throw a completely ridiculous and unwarranted long-term deal at him.
you don’t have to follow the twins very closely to know that, aside from Mauer and Morneau, they rarely offer large (especially long-term) contracts. they didn’t even try it with Johan Santana coming off of his stellar years, they just traded him — which might be exactly they path they take with Delmon.
Uh, yes they did try to sign Santana. The reason he didn’t sign was a combination that he wanted more money and he also wanted a bigger stage than Minnesota.
Additionally, prior to the ’10 season, they signed Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker to 4-year contracts, and Denard Span to a 5-year contract. Joe Nathan got 4/47 for ’08-’11 with an option for 2012. Michael Cuddyer got a 3-year deal with an option for a 4th from ’08-’11, and that option was picked up before the 2010 season.
There, 5 players that aren’t Mauer or Morneau that signed 4+ year contracts over the past few years.
I wouldn’t mind a 3 year deal that would cover his arb years. Maybe 3 years at 12-14 million. They would probably pay that much in arbitration anyway.
Um…Cuddyer and Kubel anybody?
Ugh, this guy is the most over rated Twin ever. He’s an AWFUL defender, and didn’t hit all that well last year, gawdy RBI numbers withstanding. There is little in his approach that makes you think he’ll get better. Once the weight loss wore off (that is, once he recovered and gained weight again), he got worse. And, now his going to get some horribly large arbitration award for being at or below league average. Brutal.*
*man, I hope I’m wrong about this guy….