accounts<\/a> point to harder hit balls, as do the results. On August 25, he had his first 4-hit game since last July.<\/p>\nCan he keep it up at the plate? One is often reminded that Young was named the minor league player of the year by Baseball America in 2005, and was the first overall pick in the draft two years before that. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no question about his physical talent, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to divine a way forward by looking at the peripherals.<\/p>\n
Young has never drawn walks, and he isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doing so now. Even over the last two months, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only walked four times in 118 PAs. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still room, though, for him to develop into a solid hitter without walking much.<\/p>\n
For that to happen, Young has to make a few basic changes to his approach at the plate. In 2009, a full 70% of the pitches he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seen have been strikes, compared to a league average of 62%. That is because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s swung at 59% of pitches, compared to a league average of 45%.<\/p>\n
By swinging at fewer pitches\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven ignoring, for the moment, whether or not the pitch is a strike\u00e2\u20ac\u201dYoung could force pitchers to throw him more pitches, increasing his chances to get a good ball to swing at.\u00c2\u00a0A good place to start: the first pitch, at which he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hacked a full 50% of the time, compared to a league average of 26%.<\/p>\n
Of course, offense is not the whole picture, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also part of the problem for Delmon Young. In 2008, he made 10 non-force outs on the basepaths, not counting times caught stealing. That is the second-worst number in all the American League, even though he was only 38th in times on base.<\/p>\n
In the field, Young has become worse, if anything. With the Devil Rays in 2007, he posted a UZR of 2.8\u00e2\u20ac\u201da positive number. In 2008 for the Twins, mostly in left field, he was -16.4. So far this year, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been worse than that. Inexplicably, even his arm has been markedly worse, as measured by Baseball Info Solutions.<\/p>\n
How much of that can be attributed to a different stadium, different position, and less playing time? Not sure. It must, though, be at least a partial reflection of lowered confidence. For a young man who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always been touted as a phenom, it must be deflating to get booed and benched as he has this season.<\/p>\n
At At least offensively, though, the path is clear for Young. Take more pitches, especially the first offering. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been hitting for more power lately, and his track record certainly shows that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s capable of continuing to do so. On the basepaths and in the field, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not as easy to explain the problems away. His range factor may be decreased as a result of playing next to Carlos Gomez and Denard Span, two fleet-footed center fielders.<\/p>\n
Again, it must be repeated\u00c2\u00ad\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDelmon Young is only turning 24 next month. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s younger than David Price, Matt LaPorta, Jeff Samardzija, Adam Jones, Mat Gamel, Justin Masterton, and Jed Lowrie. With regular playing time, which he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been getting lately, and an open ear to Twins coaches, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still much more likely than not to develop into an outstanding player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Among Minnesota Twins fans, Delmon Young\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name has become shorthand for the frustration with Bill Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performance in two seasons as general manager. He and Brendan Harris were acquired in return for Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza. After a decent 2008 that was panned widely, he bottomed out early this season, with fans even calling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}