Thursday, August 14, 2008

Delmon Young: Clutch Hero?

Since the trade this last winter involving Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett, Jason Pridie, Eduardo Morlan, and Brendan Harris, Delmon Young was on a steady slope downhill in the opinion of most Twins fans and for the right reasons. Young was not delivering on most of his promise. Sure, he had a decent average, but he was still showing little patience, despite improving it over his terrible career discipline, little for power, and his defense was nothing pretty to watch. In fact, Young entered the month of August with a pitiful four home runs.

However, in just a week, that has changed very quick. Yesterday, after his heroics Tuesday night off of all-time closer Mariano Rivera, Young came up again with a huge blast, smashing a Darrell Rasner offering to right field just over the baggie for a three-run homer that would give the Twins a lead they never relinquished. In his last six games, Young is hitting 9-for-25 with three homers, eight RBI, a double, and a much more powerful swing than we have been used to over the course of the year. Is it possible that Young is finally showing the power he's supposedly had since he was drafted or is this all a week-long facade that will quickly fade and be forgotten?

Let's keep in mind that even with his recent power surge, he still only has seven homers and is hitting .290/.336/.407 overall. However, in 88 at-bats since the All-Star break, he also has a OPS over .800, and has already hit more home runs than he had (3) in 339 pre-break at bats. Of course, its also worth pointing out that more thorough researchers than myself, like Aaron Gleeman, have rightfully observed that Young show a steady decline in power in the minors before he even reached the minors. The counter-point is that Young was always young for whatever level he was at, reaching the majors at just 20.

Therefore, its probably way too early to conclude much of anything from such a small sample size and it could very easily be facade. At the same time, a small sample size like this can at least suggest slow, steady improvements from a very young player. Young may not become a 40 home run masher and his progress may ultimately be stalled by lack of plate discipline, but small improvements in patience and power nonetheless can be seen in Young's second half so far and, if Twins fans show enough patience, a good and even possibly great hitter may emerge in the coming years.

The Yankees series, then they might say, is just a taste of things to come.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think one of the problems fans have had with Delmon is that the Twins billed him as a potential star player. We tend to hear the 'star' part loud and clear and ignore the 'potential' part of pronouncements like that. Also, we knew pretty well what we were giving up in Garza and Bartlett to get him, and that became the standard we would use to measure him. Delmon has talent, but he needs to work hard to turn that talent into skills. It won't happen overnight and we need to show some patience as fans, I suppose, but that patience needs to be rewarded with steady, observable improvement in baseball skills, both at the plate and in the field.

Anonymous said...

I break it down a little differently.

I like to look at how Delmon has done post his Cal Ripken streak chase haha. Honestly thought since he was finally given a break on May 29th Delmon has hit dramatically better. Before this date Delmon had a line of .258 .319 .328 .647. from May 30th on Delmon has a line of .319 .351 .476 .827.

Dramatic improvement. The main thing that changed was his walk rate has gone way down while his strikeout rate has risen slightly. However I'll take a guy with an .827 OPS that rarely walks over a guy who draws a few walks and has a .647 OPS any day.

Another point is that Delmon has all of his homeruns after that break point and 15 of his 21 doubles in only about 30 more at bats. He did have 4 triples before and none since however.

Nick M. said...

Well I mean the obviously problem is that while you'd love a guy with a .827 OPS better, a guy with little plate discipline like that might not have a sustainable average and OPS. Some guys can spurn walking and still be a great offensive player, but they are few and far between. I think he'll still need to develop at least league-average patience eventually.