Yesterday, I wrote about the early struggles of Justin Morneau. On cue, the first baseman popped off for two home runs agains the Tigers last night, doubling his season total.
Figuring I'd try and run this string out, I asked Twitter which struggling player they wanted me to write about today. The most popular answers were "bullpen" and "everyone," but among individual players the name I saw most was Delmon Young.
OK, fine, I'll write about Young. But I won't enjoy it. I'm bored with him. Can't bring myself to care about him anymore.
He lopes around apathetically in the outfield. He was a bad defender when he actually seemed to care; now he's basically unplayable out there (though Ron Gardenhire continues to trot him out daily anyway).
At the plate, Young seems similarly disinterested. Despite being a 25-year-old fresh off a breakout season, he has inexplicably turned into one of the league's worst hitters. A third of the way through through the campaign, Young has hit one home run, driven in 11, and posted a lower OPS than such sluggers as Alexi Casilla, Luke Hughes and Rene Rivera.
He's striking out once every five at-bats, and when he puts the ball in play it's typically on a weak, defensive swing early in the count. The fire that burned within Young last year, when he hit 21 homers and drove in 112 runs, has not been seen since.
On top of the lackadaisical performance, there's the external drama that habitually follows him around. Young wasted a spot on the 25-man roster for over a week in April while holding himself out of the lineup with an oblique injury, then when he was finally allegedly ready to play, he said he couldn't get loose on a cold night. The Twins immediately moved him to the DL, where he remained for almost two weeks beyond being eligible to return. What?
Seems clear we didn't get the whole story there, but whatever. I don't care anymore. Young has made himself about as unlikable as possible to fans and media members with his abrasively unpleasant personality, and now that his level of play has followed suit there's just not much reason to want him around.
I know his value is about as low as can get, but I'd still like to see the Twins move him and give him a change of scenery. Let Ben Revere play the rest of the season in left. He's got a much better shot at playing into the team's future plans, and he actually plays like he wants to be out there.
That's what fans pay to see.
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36 comments:
Now let's home he hits two home runs tomorrow.
Amen. The sooner he is gone the better. It is agonizing to watch this guy underutilize his talent and not care about it. A weird headcase, this guy.
While I'm not a fan of Delmon Young, both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference show that Delmon is a plus-defender this year, which is balancing out his deficiencies at the bat to produce exactly zero WAR on both scales.
I feel like as soon as we get rid of Delmon he is going to re-motivate himself and turn into a star where ever he ends up. It's going to be David Ortiz all over again.
Unfortunately as much as I fear this I just can't see him turning it around for us. So I guess we have to let him go and see if we can get anything decent for him.
I get the feeling we're starting to see Young become one of "those" guys who thrives on a competitive team, but once things go south he's not able to get himself to care enough to help pull them out of it.
Something akin to "Manny being Manny", and just about as annoying.
And it sucks too, because coming off last year it was like "Why on Earth would you trade Young?"
And here I thought he had turned it around attitude wise in the past year.
SadPanda: If Young turns into the next Ortiz once he leaves the Twins, it would be further evidence of him being the type of player that only looks out for himself. He has the talent to do well ANYWHERE, but if he can't motivate himself to help a team when it's struggling...then he's not the kind of player that will help the Twins at this point.
FanGraphs and Baseball Reference show that Delmon is a plus-defender this year
Nothing against FanGraphs or BR, but really? A "plus-defender?"
Delmon also has always been a slow starter and it didn't help him to be out with the injury. His career numbers for April and May are well below his numbers for the other four months, so the Twins should at least wait for him to heat up with the weather before looking to move him. Revere can wait and so can the Twins. Moving Delmon for peanuts right now would just be stupid.
Yes, Matt, Total Zone, BIS and UZR all have virtually identical numbers. Delmon hasn't just been above average, UZR has him second best among AL left fielders this year behind Brett Gardner.
About the only thing I disagree with in this post is playing Revere in LF. Move Span over there and play Revere in CF, where is popgun arm might hurt the team less and his fabulous speed and fielding ability could help more. Plus, we know Span is an excellent defensive player in LF.
Amazing how badly the roster has crashed this season.
Defensive metrics are not worth paying attention to in a quarter-season sample. A guy who doesn't even run after the balls he misplays shouldn't be on an MLB field.
A poster child for giving Bill Smith the boot. And the cupboard is bare, too.
I hope that Delmon goes off for a month and then we can trade him for something really special, like a terrible RP. Get it done, Billy! We all have faith!
Nice media hit job. Young is dead weight based on 131 plate appearances this year. Oh, that isn't all. He really is no Michael Cuddyer. He doesn't do card tricks.
Frankly, the only thing worse than the Twins play has been some of the reaction in the blogsphere. This being another example.
Nice media hit job. Young is dead weight based on 131 plate appearances this year. Oh, that isn't all. He really is no Michael Cuddyer. He doesn't do card tricks.
Cuddyer hasn't been good (and I've hardly given him a pass), but his OPS is nearly 200 points higher than Young's and he actually has the appearance of a player who gives a damn. The two aren't comparable. Very ignorant comment.
"Frankly, the only thing worse than the Twins play has been some of the reaction in the blogsphere."
Yes, those damn bloggers who are seeing their preseason concerns come to light. Why can't the damn blogosphere be nicer to the worst team in baseball (with a top-10 payroll, no less)?
You guys can't get too bent out of shape about TT's comment. If you click into his blog, the most recent post is about how the Twins front office couldn't have done anything to avoid this kind of season this year.
Nick predicted trouble. Hell, I knew this season would be trouble (although not this bad), and I'm not what I would consider a baseball expert.
Cuddyer's numbers in April, during his first 100+ plate appearances, were no better than youngs. But that is hardly the point, its plain dumb to evaluate a player based on 100 plate appearances split around injuries. Just not as dumb as basing an evaluation on some perceived attitude.
"those damn bloggers who are seeing their preseason concerns come to light"
I would like to see the blogger whose pre-season concern was that Mauer, Morneau, Young and Thome would have less than 10 home runs between them at the end of May. Or would have had any useful suggestions what to do to prepare for that. Or that the Twins would only have three hitters with batting averages over .250.
The concerns here:
"As a 28-year-old who's out of options and hasn't been effective since the 2008 season, Perkins seemed like a lock to be non-tendered this offseason."
"I expect the front office to be cursing themselves for failing to at least more actively pursue a three- or four-year deal (with Liriano) this past offseason."
"it's tough to understand why Blackburn would have been promised a rotation spot so quickly this spring."
And, then there was this:
"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."
So far from having concerns confirmed, mostly what has happened is a lot of things went wrong. Some of the obvious weaknesses, depth at catcher and middle infield, were part of the problem. But a lot of other unanticipated things went wrong as well.
"I told you so" only works when you you say it BEFORE it happens.
"I told you so" only works when you you say it BEFORE it happens.
http://www.nickstwinsblog.com/2011/03/minnesota-twins-2011-season-preview.html
Injuries, horrible depth (especially at catcher and middle infield) and a miserable bullpen. Those things haven't been problems at all for the Twins this year.
I'd return the favor of nit-picking your blog for every bad piece of analysis you've provided over the past year, but readers need only click on your name and start from the top.
Seriously, within a span of TWO days last week TT wrote that the Twins aren't really out of it yet, then that the team is so bad and so hopeless that better moves during the offseason would have been pointless. Great stuff.
TT actually wrote this, straight-faced, in his blog:
"there is nothing realistically the Twins could have done in the off-season to prevent the current debacle."
Sorry TT, but nobody takes you seriously when you write things like this.
Nick had concerns about bullpen, middle infield, depth; TT predicted "110+ wins for the best Twins team ever." And TT's taking potshots at Nick.
You can't make this stuff up.
The Twins aren't out of it. The problem is there never were any "better moves" the Twins could or should have realistically made. With the losses they have suffered, having Nick Punto or another better backup infielder would not have saved the team. Nor would JD Hardy, who actually hasn't hit any better than Casilla this year and is a worse fielder. Even if they could afford the payroll. The only guy you projected for the bullpen who hasn't been on the DL is Capps. They lost Mijares, Perkins and Nathan.
We knew the Twins were not deep in the middle infield and at catcher. But that isn't why they are close to out of it.
They are close to out because their projected 2,3,4 and 5 hitters have combined for less than 100 hits and 10 home runs between them. They are close to out because their projected "dominant ace" has struggled to get 6 innings worth of outs.
"Injuries, horrible depth (especially at catcher and middle infield) and a miserable bullpen. Those things haven't been problems at all for the Twins this year."
Of course they have. Except its their lack of depth at first base, third base and left field that has hurt them the most. If they had Morneau, Young and Valencia hitting like last year, having Casilla and Plouffe in the middle infield wouldn't be a problem. Nor would having Butera at catcher.
That they can't lose their three projected setup guys in the bullpen and not feel it does not indicate "horrible depth". Knock Duensing, Guerrier and Mijares out of last spring's bullpen and you would be left with a struggling Crain as your only choice in late innings to get to Rauch. And you were ready to release Crain about this time last year.
But that again misses the point. Based on 100 plate appearances split around time on the DL your evaluation of Young went from "no reason" he can't build on last year to "dead weight".
I have no doubt regardless of how Young ends the year, you will be able to say "I told you so." You change your mind so often you always have that option.
"there is nothing realistically the Twins could have done in the off-season to prevent the current debacle."
You better decide what it was. Because I haven't heard any realistic suggestions for off-season moves that would have replaced Nishioka, Mauer, Morneau and Young's non-production. Much less would have replaced Mijares, Perkins and Nathan in the bullpen. Or caused Liriano to get 6 innings worth of outs in a start.
What we hear is that the Twins should have signed three relievers for $30+ million and held on to Jose Morales. And spent a bunch more money on JD Hardy, who isn't hitting any better than Casilla and is not as good a fielder.
Seems to me that all you and TT are demonstrating with your back and forth about who has the worse analysis is something that the quiet majority of intelligent baseball fans have know for some time: That most bloggers do not have the kind of scouting background required to provide consistently solid analysis regarding a player's current ability or future potential. In place of scouting expertise you fall back on a mix of amateurish eyeball assessments and sabremetrics. And that yields wildly inconsistent analysis in terms of quality, which is exactly the kind of dumb luck "hit miss" ratio you get with most any form of ignorant speculating.
I know he's an ass but I could see this being another David Ortiz situation again. He gets tarred and feathered by the media because he dismisses them but the guy is only 25 and had a pretty good year last year and was the best hitter in mlb for 5 weeks. Nobody knows what really happened with the dl stint and just because he's not some robotic, dult niceguy, off to a terrible start shouldn't make him a trade target any more than the rest of his teammates who almost to the last guy are having bad seasons. The league and any other workplace is full of pricks, many of them do their job well. It's not like they wont need a dh next season because if you're thinking they will pay kubel the going rate for an established veteren hitter with a little pop than you're nuttier than squirrel turds.
"And spent a bunch more money on JD Hardy, who isn't hitting any better than Casilla and is not as good a fielder."
Let's ignore Hardy's 80 pt OPS advantage, and just focus on the last part of that statement.
Casilla LOST HIS SS JOB two weeks into the season specifically because his defense is not up to major league standards. The Twins have ran two other people through the position since, and are considering a third (Nishioka). Nobody, anywhere--with the exception of TT I guess--thinks Alexi Casilla can be an every day major league shortstop. Nobody.
Statements like that just make it hard to take you seriously, TT. I sometimes wonder if even YOU believe what you say.
There isn't any one, or two, or even three main reasons why this team sucks. The reality is that there are at least 7-8 factors combined that have led to the worst team in MLB, most of them self inflicted. The question now is, what do they do to try to right the ship? At what point does Gardy decide he's had enough? When do the Pohlads decide to hold Bill Smith accountable for all the dumb moves??
TT - if you think the Twins aren't out of it you're completely delusional.
Nor would JD Hardy, who actually hasn't hit any better than Casilla this year and is a worse fielder.
Since you know how to spell Hardy's first name correctly, I can tell you take your baseball very seriously. That notion is strengthened by the fact that you notice Hardy (.250/.324/.406, 3 HR) has not outhit Alexi Casilla (.231/.297/.315, 0 HR) and cemented by your great scouting take on the defensive aptitude of both players. Marvelous work.
In all honesty, TT, we're trying to have a meaningful conversation here and I've grown tired of your trolling act. If you don't have anything serious to add, go away.
In place of scouting expertise you fall back on a mix of amateurish eyeball assessments and sabremetrics.
Yes, how unfortunate that my "amateurish eyeball assessments" couldn't see the wonderful starting potential of Alexi Casilla or the true $7 million worth of Matt Capps. Better leave it up to the pros, they've proven their competence in spades.
Laughing. Out. Loud. TT.
Anyway, I swear I've been one of Delmon Young's biggest defenders the past few seasons, but he's losing my support very quickly.
I'm however, more concerned about the "Twins way of doing things" at this point. I think we're nearing the ledge (or taking the leap off) where the evidence supports the notion that the Twins don't want to adapt to their players, they want their players to adapt to them. Which frankly, in my view, is the worst way you can approach building your franchise/MLB Roster.
There was David Ortiz - "We want you to hit for average (even though your a prime example of a 'slugger' and we have a short porch in RF at the Metrodome"). Goes to Boston, becomes that slugger as soon as the Twins' reins were taken off.
There's Kyle Lohse - one of the "don't like his attitude guys". Had a few good years with Twins (better than Blackburn's best years) and was forced out. Has been a good 4 or 5 starter since, and ridiculous this year. Ya, who really cares about him at this point, but have you heard anything about his demeanor or attitude since leaving? Pretty sure Tony La Russa loves him...
There's Matt Garza - Management didn't like his attitude either, but anyone could see he was worth more than his weight as a pitcher. Has never had an ERA above 4.00 since his first year. Again, ever hear of "attitude" issues or clashes with management since leaving?
More recently there's been Orlando Hudson ("loudmouth"), J.J. Hardy (your guess is as good as mine), Kevin Slowey (starter being made a reliever), Delmon Young (non-receptive to coaching, but in the Twins case, probably for good reason), and Francisco Liriano (pitching to contact).
The problem with most of these players, is they are the ones who have been or are capable of being cornerstones, or could provide significant on-the-field value. Instead of helping them succeed by placing them in situations where they can excel, they've tried to make many of them into something they are not. Then, when they disagree or try to make their case for what they like or want to do, they get crucified by their team leader as not being a "team player". Ever hear of being "team coach"? Gardy sure hasn't, he's a "players coach". As in, if you fall in line and do what you're told even though it could significantly alter the way you have played the game of baseball all your life or diminish your value, you become one of my "players". I know there are plenty of player's elsewhere who have had similar issues, but "changes in scenery" with the Minnesota Twins seem to more often lead to improvements for players who leave, and regression's for player's who arrive. That's not a good endorsement of how the team is operated and coached.
But we all also need to realize that this season is one big effing anomaly across every aspect of the organization. Injuries, underperformance, failed roster decisions, lack of foresight, lack of depth, lack of ready resources, lack of preperation; every single thing you can think of with this team has gone wrong. Saddest part is, I don't know if we can place trust in those who run the team to make the proper or hard decisions to solve them all (or even just a few of them) going forward.
When I heard Delmon loaf over and miss the easy foul ball, I shut off the radio.
I've given up TV a long time ago...
Then on the 10 o'clock news I see Casilla trying to bunt, down by two, in the ninth.
Are you kidding me? Could this get any worse?
We shall see.
I'm however, more concerned about the "Twins way of doing things" at this point. I think we're nearing the ledge (or taking the leap off) where the evidence supports the notion that the Twins don't want to adapt to their players, they want their players to adapt to them. Which frankly, in my view, is the worst way you can approach building your franchise/MLB Roster.
If/when Tom Kelly ever leaves the organization, and his long time confidants go with him (Gardy included), this might change. Until then, don't count on it.
"Let's ignore Hardy's 80 pt OPS advantage"
Lets ignore that "hitting" is the present tense. Casilla had a terrible April while Hardy was on the DL and wasn't hitting at all. Since then Casilla has a higher AVG, OBP and SLG.
"Casilla LOST HIS SS JOB two weeks into the season specifically because his defense is not up to major league standards."
And Hardy lost his job with the Twins, in part, because Gardy was tired of him waiting for balls to come to him or heading backwards to make up for his lack of range.
"Seems to me that all you and TT are demonstrating with your back and forth about who has the worse analysis is something that the quiet majority of intelligent baseball fans have know for some time: That most bloggers do not have the kind of scouting background required to provide consistently solid analysis regarding a player's current ability"
Thank you for making my point so much more clearly than I did (although maybe is was clearer than I want to believe).
"Goes to Boston, becomes that slugger as soon as the Twins' reins were taken off."
Uh - he took off with the help of steroids. I am not sure that proves much about the Twins approach unless you believe the Twins somehow prevented that from happening sooner. At the time, there wasn't another team in baseball willing to take a chance on arbitration with him.
"When I heard Delmon loaf over and miss the easy foul ball,"
My hearing isn't that good. I think that pretty much summarizes where all the Young bashing starts.
"Lets ignore that "hitting" is the present tense. Casilla had a terrible April while Hardy was on the DL and wasn't hitting at all. Since then Casilla has a higher AVG, OBP and SLG."
Ah, now I understand. If we take out all the outs made by Casilla from his hitting line, and take out all the non-outs from Hardy's, then Casilla is, indeed, outhitting Hardy.
Gotcha.
No Chief, it you look at how they is hitting now,present tense, Casilla is hitting better. If you are looking at how they hit in April, then Hardy was on the DL for most of the month.
If you look at last season, Casilla was the better hitter. So, if you take out that one bad month of April, Casilla has been a better hitter than Hardy over for the last season and a quarter. I think that makes him a better hitter, regardless of April.
This is similar to the dead weight argument about Young. We don't have enough results to be changing our assessment of either one based on their results this year. So you are just taking the opportunity to repeat what you said all winter.
Nick, on the other hand, changed his mind about YOung 180 degrees based on 100 plate appearances. Constantly changing your mind on a monthly basis allows you to say "see I told you so" regardless of what happens.
Not changing your evaluations based on limited results is also the reason I haven't completely given up on the Twins yet. I thought this team had the potential to be one of its best teams ever. And I still think that is possible if they can get everyone healthy and playing well. That is an even bigger "if" than it was to start the season. And they are in a very deep hole. Its a very long shot, but not impossible.
Nick, on the other hand, changed his mind about YOung 180 degrees based on 100 plate appearances. Constantly changing your mind on a monthly basis allows you to say "see I told you so" regardless of what happens.
I didn't change my mind about Young, he changed it for me. As a 25-year-old of elite pedigree coming off a breakout season, I don't think I was going out on a limb by predicting another strong season for him this year.
He's obviously failed to meet anyone's expectations, including mine, and he's looked completely lethargic and disinterested the whole while. I don't see him being on the team past this year, and this is a lost year, so I'd rather see a kid like Revere take his lumps and show the Twins what he's got.
That's not "reactionary," and no one's saying I told you so. Obviously my faith in Young was misguided. I'm done having faith in him.
Not changing your evaluations based on limited results is also the reason I haven't completely given up on the Twins yet.
No, that would be called being unable to ever admit you're wrong. Which you were. Laughably, absurdly wrong. And as amusing as your attempts to prove otherwise have been, I think it's safe to say you're not going to fool anyone.
"So, if you take out that one bad month of April, Casilla has been a better hitter than Hardy over for the last season and a quarter."
And if you take out all the Twins losses, they're 101-0 over the last season and a third.
If you take out all the times Harmon Killebrew didn't hit a home run, he's got the greatest HR/AB ratio in the history of the universe.
This is a cool game.
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