 |
| Jed Jacobsohn, Getty |
With circumstances being what they are, it's difficult to maintain a completely positive outlook on most of the Twins' key players this year without inserting rather significant caveats.
"Joe Mauer could return to MVP form this year if the knee which bothered him throughout much of last season and into this spring is at full strength."
"Francisco Liriano could be a Cy Young contender if he can overcome the mental hurdles which have plagued him."
"Justin Morneau could have a dramatic impact in the middle of the Twins' lineup if he can keep his concussion symptoms at bay."
And so forth.
With that being said, one player I'm unabashedly optimistic about this season is Delmon Young. Unlike the majority of core hitters who suffered through disappointing and/or injury-riddled seasons in 2010, Young finally broke through with a career year, tallying 21 homers and 112 RBI while besting his lifetime OPS by nearly 100 points. At age 25, he's entering his fifth full big-league season and there's little reason to think he won't be able to build on that success.
I've not been one of Young's biggest proponents over his first few years in Minnesota. That's not because I doubted his talent or ability, but because he simply wasn't a very valuable player. In each of his first three big-league seasons (including '07 with the Rays), Young was essentially the same player -- a guy who could post a solid batting average but wouldn't supplement it with much in the way of patience, power or defensive aptitude.
In his breakout 2010 campaign, Young continued to avoid walks like the plague, drawing only 28 in 613 plate appearances, but he made substantive improvements in other areas, most notably contact (he struck out in only 13 percent of his plate appearances, compared to 22 percent in '09) and power (his 68 extra-base hits nearly matched his total of 72 from his first two seasons with the Twins).
While his approach at the plate wasn't always picture perfect (and it likely never will be), Young had the look last season of a young player who was finally growing into his muscular physique. As you can see in the table below, he hit the ball on the ground less often, which helped him turn some of his singles into doubles and home runs:
PA | GB% | FB% | SLG | |
2008 | 623 | 55.2 | 27.8 | .405 |
2009 | 416 | 49.7 | 34.1 | .425 |
2010 | 613 | 44.7 | 39.8 | .493 |
When you're hitting the ball in the air only once out of every four plate appearances, like Young did as a 22-year-old in his first season with the Twins, you're not giving yourself a lot of chances for deep outfield drives and home runs, which explains why about 75 percent of his hits that season were singles. However, as Young has matured over the past three years he's started to get under the ball with increased frequency, and the results have been very positive. If the trend continues this year his fly ball rate could rise well over 40 percent, and if he's hitting the ball in the air that often with his powerful frame it could result in a whole lot of gopher balls, even in spacious Target Field.
Even if the power incline continues, Young still won't be a hugely valuable all-around player. The run production is nice, but he doesn't draw walks and remains a slow-footed, abysmal defender -- an issue which could worsen this year if his early troubles with turf toe carry over into the regular season.
Ron Gardenhire would be wise to find more opportunities to work Young into the lineup as a designated hitter this season, especially against lefties and with fly ball pitchers on the mound for the Twins. His bat is turning into an unquestionable asset but that doesn't fully offset the damage he can do in the outfield.
Should Gardy choose to lessen Young's outfield load this year, superior defensive replacements would include Jason Repko and Ben Revere, who could ultimately be Young's successor in left.
Predicted 2011 Hitting Line for Young: .310/.360/.550, 30 HR, 120 RBI
***
I also wanted to take some time today to explain a new feature I'm adding to the site this year. You may have noticed a new widget on the sidebar, just above the classic Christopher Walken pic, with the header "Twins Blog Tickets."
Here's the deal: I've partnered with a company called TiqIQ to offer readers this new avenue for finding tickets to games. If you click through the widget, you'll be taken to a TiqIQ Twins page (sporting a slick NTB co-branded design) with aggregated ticket and price listings from such third-party sellers as StubHub, TicketsNow and eBay.
Here are some of the unique features of TiqIQ:
1. Aggregated Listings: They aggregate all major sellers in the market so you can find the best deal.
2. TiqZone Categorization: They break each venue up into TiqZones, which are groupings of sections that we’ve determined are comparable in value.
3. TiqIQ Statistics: They provide ticket-level buying intelligence through their IQ rating and TiqIQ Statistics.
4. E-Ticket Filter: Want tickets last minute? You can find all the available e-tickets so you can print your tickets from home or the office.
5. All-in Pricing Option: Before you complete your sale you'll be able to tell exactly how much your tickets will cost including all service and shipping fees.
13 comments:
"Francisco Liriano could be a Cy Young contender if he can overcome the mental hurdles which have plagued him."
Usually I have to go all the way to twinsgeek's blog to get my fill of unsubstantiated garbage like this. You forgot to mention that alexi casilla could be the best SS in baseball IF he continues to develop his infield leadership skills. Also, Matt tolbert will be an valuable utility infielder IF he can continue to be a gamer.
"Left-hander Brian Duensing continued his impressive spring by allowing just one run on three hits over five innings of work in the Twins' 4-1 win over the Pirates on Monday.
With his solid outing, Duensing has a 1.59 ERA with 12 strikeouts and three walks in 17 innings pitched so far in Grapefruit League play."
AND YOU ATTRIBUTE IT ALL TO LUCK. WHAT A DOOFUS
"abysmal defender"?? Wow, is that a stretch. Look at the numbers. Using the word abysmal is unfair and, for lack of a better way of describing it, poor/sensationalizing journalism. He may not be the best left fielder in baseball, but he is definitely not the worst.
Really? You call Nick's comment about Liriano to be unsubstantiated garbage? Liriano has some of the best stuff in the game and proved it as a rookie and proved it again last year- when he was finally far enough removed from his surgery- when he had those two very long scoreless streaks.
The critiques of Liriano have never been that he doesn't have the talent, but that he loses his focus and confidence, and then starts to not rely on his pitches.
I don't even know what part you think is garbage- that Liriano has the pitches and physical capability to be a Cy Young contender, or that he has lacked the mental focus thus far in his career to be a Cy Young contender. Both are dead on, though.
In response to Anonymous 3.0- yes. Young is a pretty abysmal defender. If you watch him in the field, that's really not that sensational of a statement.
Is he the worst? No. But he is definitely one of the worst regular starting left fielders. People who are worse than Young typically don't stay at the MLB level because their bat can't outweigh their poor defense, or they're just filling in temporarily due to injury/poor performance or just to give a regular a day off before they go back to playing DH.
I'm a big fan of Young, but he gets slow jumps in the field, steps in the wrong direction on the initial step too frequently, skips the cutoff man, runs past fly balls, and just flat out misses some. He's getting better, but even last year he was pretty bad.
"I don't even know what part you think is garbage"
The part where nick lazily filed lirianos missteps away as the result of mental weakness. I call it unsubstantiated because it is. If it wasnt then you could tell me how many extra runs liriano's mental toughness cost him compared to the mental toughness of a typical pitcher, or you would be able to provide any evidence mental toughness played any part in liriano's results other than dick bremer said it was the case. Its just an easy, low thought way of explaining the difference between lirianos peripherals and his ERA. I'm not saying psyche has doesnt have an effect on a pitcher, I'm saying that pretending to have any knowledge of lirianos mental toughness, compared to typical players and how that pertains to actual run scoring is impossible.
Usually I have to go all the way to twinsgeek's blog to get my fill of unsubstantiated garbage like this.
Uh, what? Liriano's stuff is among the best in the game, that's not even debatable (induced a higher rate of swings-and-misses than any other pitcher last year). Claiming that with some improvements on the mental side he could be one of the best pitchers in the league (if he's not already) is "unsubstantiated garbage" and akin to overhyping Casilla and Tolbert?
Right...
He may not be the best left fielder in baseball, but he is definitely not the worst.
He's among the worst. What "numbers" are you referring to that suggest otherwise?
I'm not saying psyche has doesnt have an effect on a pitcher, I'm saying that pretending to have any knowledge of lirianos mental toughness, compared to typical players and how that pertains to actual run scoring is impossible.
Liriano himself has admitted that in certain spots he overthinks on the mound and gets too worked up. The coaching staff has echoed those sentiments. I'm not making it up.
Wow, bad morning for people whoh appen to be named anonymous. Three completely ridiculous comments in a row...
"Claiming that with some improvements on the mental side he could be one of the best pitchers in the league (if he's not already) is "unsubstantiated garbage" and akin to overhyping Casilla and Tolbert?"
I think liriano is a top 5 pitcher in baseball right now. My complaint was purely with the mental toughness part. If Liriano has better luck getting balls in play turned into outs hes suddenly going to have more mental toughness whether thats accurate or not because thats what people have latched onto with him. Right now lirianos perceived lack of mental toughness and its importance is overblown by twins fans and the local media. I was trying to liken mental toughness to other intangibles people latch onto like clubhouse leadership and scrappiness. These thing do exits and have some value, but their importance is often overblown because talent and execution are a lot more important.
I definitely agree completely with Nick as to Delmon's bat improving is a cause for optimism. However, as nice as it would be to see Young DH more to lesson the burden of his lackluster defense, I just can't see those opportunities coming often. For starters, we just dropped a couple million bucks on a player that does nothing but DH, not to mention we need to accomodate for Kubel (doubtful he'll get to play right over Cuddy often barring major injury to the infielder) AND Mauer is reserved significant DH time (sorry I don't have the stat on hand, but I think it was something around 100 at bats last season). The Twins have the great problem of a variety of fully capable hitters to fill in a DH position that probably takes priority over Delmon. Not to say it wouldn't be great to see him get time there and minimize his negative impact defensively (which would possibly make way for some major league experience for Revere [gotta admit, I'm excited about him]), it just doesn't look like it fits well given the Twins current situation. Then again,maybe Twins brass feels differently.
Delmon has cost the twins an average of 14.5 runs per season the last three years according to Fangraphs which is the third worst among all OFs (Jermaine Dye and Brad Hawpe). He's that bad at defense.
I share a positive outlook for his bat this year (especially in terms of ave and increased HR projection), but I don't see any reason for his OBP to be 50 points higher than his average. His walk rate of 4.6% last year was actually the second best of his career and he only had a .35 point difference (compared to a .325-.292 = .033 for his career). If he hits for the .310 average you predict, I'd expect the OBP to be closer to .340 than .360 simply because he will not take a walk.
Right now lirianos perceived lack of mental toughness and its importance is overblown by twins fans and the local media.
Overblown? Yes. Some people go way over the top in attributing Liriano's occasional struggles last year to a lack of toughness. But to ignore the very existence of a mental aspect to his gradual and setback-filled recovery from Tommy John surgery is equally silly.
Most pitchers who undergo TJ don't take as long as Liriano to return to their pre-surgery state of mind. He was closer last year but I still don't think he was there yet. I believe him and the coaching staff when they say he had a tendency to get overly amped up in big spots and I sometimes don't think he has as much motivation as others to better himself (how else do you explain his weight gain after surgery, and his inability to even keep up with shoulder exercises during the offseason?).
Put another way, I think there's more to the fact that Liriano's core numbers failed to match his elite stuff than sheer bad luck, though obviously that was a big part of it. And I think this year he'll be pitching more confidence than ever and the results will match.
nice write up once again Nick, completely agree on Liriano being one of the best in the game, he scares me in pressure situations though because of his mental issues.
As for Young, I love his bat, he looked so good at the plate last year but like you said is terrible in left. I'd like Revere to get some time there, as I think he could be excellent at the top of the lineup
Post a Comment