Breaking Down: Delmon Young

February 27, 2010 9:30am CST

In 2003, Delmon Young was the first overall selection in the Major League Draft.

In 2005 he was Baseball America's Minor League Player of the year.

In 2006 he was Baseball America's #1 minor league prospect.

In 2007 he was Baseball America's #3 minor league prospect.

So what happened?


2009 REVIEW - DELMON YOUNG
.284-12-60-50-2 in 395 at-bats

In his third full season in the big leagues, Young received a 3-year low of just 395 at-bats. He had no one to blame but himself as he hit just .239 with one homer in his first 32 games. In fact, he hit a meager .266 with three homers over 192 at-bats in the first half. He was a new man in the second half hitting .300 with nine homers in 203 at-bats. Even better, when the team needed him most down the stretch, he excelled hitting .340 over his final 26 games.


THE GOOD

The most obvious thing to mention would be a two digit number: 24.

That is Delmon Young's age as he enters the year (he won't turn 25 until September 14th). It may seem like he is much older, but the fact is that he is still young in terms of his baseball age. Plus, you don't end up as the #1 pick in the country, and a yearly feature of top prospect lists, if you lack talent. Remember that before you judge him too harshly.

As for his work on the field, there are some things to like there, as well.

First off, Young is a pretty fair hitter as judged by batting average. Young has never hit worse than last year's .284 mark, and in 1,741 career at-bats Delmon owns a .290 career batting average. Amongst players with at least 1,500 plate appearances the past three years, his .288 batting average, the 50th best mark in baseball. He is also one of just 21 guys who have had at least 400 plate appearances in each of the past three years who has hit at least .284 in each of those seasons. Not too shabby.

And that ends our positive discussion of Delmon Young.

OK, not quite, but I think you get the point with Young. He is talented, but as of yet the only category that he really "owns" is batting average.


THE BAD

Delmon Young thinks he is Vladimir Guerrero or Pablo Sandoval.
Delmon Young is not Vladimir Guerrero or Pablo Sandoval.

Still, that fact hasn't dissuaded Young from continuing to approach his at-bats as if he is one of those two guys I just mentioned. Young thinks he can literally hit any ball that's in the air. Some players can swing at everything and remain productive, but history has shown us that men that approach at-bats in that manner clearly have a tougher time being consistent month to month and year to year (hello Jeff Francoeur).

Young owns an 85.3 percent contact rate on pitches he swings at inside the strike zone displaying an ability to make contact. Unfortunately, he also owns a 54 percent mark on making contact on pitches he swings at outside the strike zone. Complicating matters further, and this is the most germane number in this discussion, Young swings at over 82 percent of all balls throw inside the strike zone in his career. Amongst batters who qualified for the batting title, only two men in baseball were over 79 percent last year, the aforementioned Sandoval (82.9) and Francoeur (58.5). Its hard to "Get your pitch" when you swing at every pitch in the zone. Moreover, Young was third in baseball last season in swing percentage as he swung at 59.3 percent of all pitches thrown to the plate (min. 400 plate appearances). The only men who were worse were Guerrero (60.5) and Bengie Molina (59.5).

What has all of that swinging done? It has led to a feeble walk rate of four percent in his career. Think of it, Young has 74 walks in his career. Teammate Joe Mauer walked 76 times last season. This failure to take a pitch has led to a flat out atrocious 0.21 BB/K mark in his career, and an adjective to describe just how putrid he was last season (0.13) in this measure escapes me. He may have a .290 batting average in his career, but that .322 OBP is just terrible (the AL average since 2006 is .337).

We might be able to overlook these foibles if Young was a power hitter, but that he is not. Young has hit only 38 homers in his career, or the same total of Adam Dunn from just last season. Young owns a league average nine percent HR/F in his career, but his fly ball rate is low at 31 percent. Unfortunately his line drive rate is also average at 19 percent, which obviously means he hits a lot of ground balls. Young owns a 1.62 G/F ratio in his career, which would be great if he was a speed guy like Denard Span. Unfortunately he isn't. Unless he somehow learns how to lift the ball, and with each passing year that seems less and less likely, a perfect storm for Young wouldn't lead to anything more than about 20 homers.


MOVING FORWARD

"Delmon Young is in the shape of his life, looks 19, is figuring it out... A very bright man on the verge of The Breakout." - Peter Gammons from his Twitter account.

So what does Mr. Gammons see that the numbers don't show? Gammons sees the same things that those talent evaluators in Tampa saw when they convinced the Rays to take Young 1st overall in the 2003 draft, and he sees the same thing that led Baseball America to tab Young, year after year, as one of the best prospects in baseball. Young has tools, a bunch of them, even if he has failed to ever really flash them for an extended period of time. Anecdotally Young is in good shape and seems to have his head on straight, and factually he did have a strong second half last season that would net him something like a .300-27-105 line in 155 games.

At the same time we have three years of little to no growth, terrible plate discipline, and an attitude that has been questioned by some. There is also a chance that he doesn't get everyday playing time as Jason Kubel figures to DH most days, but the Twins will also look to get Jim Thome involved in games which would likely move Kubel to the outfield and Young to the bench.

Bottom line with Young? He'll be cheap on draft day and there is some upside possible if you take him late enough in mixed leagues. Just don't go buying the preseason hype and think that .300-25-100 season is coming because you likely would have a better chance of scoring a date with an SI swimsuit model.