Delmon Young’s 2010 Season: A Matter of Perspective
by Bobomojo on Sep 8, 2010 9:05 AM EDT
in Player Profiles
Email
Print
Last night, Delmon Young had his best night at the plate in over a month, going 3 for 4 with 2 doubles and 4 RBI. Those 4 RBIs raised his season total to 97, easily the highest on the team.
Without a doubt, Delmon’s production will be looked at as one of the major positives of the 2010 season, no matter how the final weeks play out. He’s having the best year of his young career, finally showing the power that made him the top prospect in the game just a few years ago. And, of course, his amazing July gave Twins fans a glimpse of what Delmon could become: a feared, middle of the order presence that (fortunately, for our team) bats right-handed.
Yet, Delmon gives us an interesting case study in the on-going debate over how we judge a players’ overall value. It’s a debate that pops up every season around awards time, when stat-heads (myself, included) whine about player so-and-so getting MVP consideration, despite their terrible (fill in your favorite overly-long baseball acronym) Let's talk about it after the jump.
Let me put it this way: if the season were measured in headlines, Delmon Young just might be the Twins MVP. He’s knocked in 97 runs, many of which have come with two outs or in high-leverage situations. According to Win Probability Added, offensively he’s improved the Twins chances of winning more than any hitter on the team not named Justin Morneau (Yes, that’s right, Justin Morneau is still leads the teams’ hitters in WPA).
But of course, we all know that Delmon didn’t knock in 97 runs without a little help from the names above him on the line-up card. Batting behind a formidable top of the line-up has given Delmon plenty of RBI opportunities. Yes, he’s made the most of them, but without those opportunities, his season would certainly look a lot different.
Here’s why I find this so interesting: without the RBIs, without the headlines, Delmon’s season looks terribly underwhelming (albeit a major step forward in his young career). Among starting left fielders, Delmon’s 822 OPS ranks just ninth, sandwiched between Alfonso Soriano and Brett Gardner. His defense is still terrible and he does himself no favors on the base paths. In fact, using WAR (yep, here come the acronyms I warned you about), which accounts for a players offensive contribution, his position, and his defense to sum up their total value, Delmon has been worth about 1.5 wins over a replacement-level left fielder. Or, for context, Delmon’s been worth about the same number of wins as Marco Scutaro.
Of course, WAR doesn’t care that Delmon has performed well in the clutch, knocked in 97 runs, or stepped up when the Twins were facing several serious injuries. It puts player performances in a neutral environment, where the performance of a player’s teammates doesn’t impact how the player is judged.
As a guy who typically falls on the stat-head side of arguments, I have to admit I’m torn when it comes to Delmon Young’s 2010 season. I see the low OBP, I see the terrible defense, and I know Delmon is a flawed player. But then I look back on Delmon’s season, and can’t help but think that without him and his performance in high leverage situations – let’s say, with a so-called "replacement-level" left fielder, instead – we may not have a 4.5 game lead over the White Sox right now.
28 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
With you, but...
First off, while it’s true that RBI totals can be misleading, in Delmon’s case there’s a huge caveat that has to be considered – most guys who hit 100+ RBI are regular #3 and #4 hitters who are perfectly positioned to have lots of opportunities to drive in runs, since they’re hitting ahead of the guys who are most likely to get on base. Delmon has, quite literally, spent half his season batting #7 or below — he’s got 272 plate appearances as the #7 or lower batter, and 249 PAs batting #6 or higher. Delmon has found himself most frequently hitting behind Michael Cuddyer (OBP .340) and Jason Kubel (OBP .337), guys whose performance is only a bit better than Delmon’s own (.334).
Where Delmon has shone this year is in taking advantage of those additional opportunities. Let me put it this way — according to baseballreference.com, the ‘average’ MLB hitter with 517 PAs has driven in 57 of the 320 runners on base in front of him (17.8%). Delmon in 2010 (not counting yesterday’s game) has driven in 93 of the 389 runners on base in front of him (23.9%). Look at the situational hitting numbers:
Overall – .303/822
Runners on – .335/896
RISP – .367/931
Runner on 3rd, less than two out – .471/1167 (in 44 PAs)
Low leverage situations – .290/721
High leverage situations – .347/903
Now, it’s a perfectly valid question to ask if this kind of production is sustainable — though Young’s career numbers in the above categories are actually eerily similar to this year’s numbers, just not quite to the same degree:
Overall – .293/756
Runners on – .308/805
RISP – .320/818
Runner on 3rd, less than two out – .396/963 (in 190 PAs)
Low leverage situations – .287/739
High leverage situations – .320/811
If Young’s improvement in 2010 can be maintained, and his splits in these situations are part of his skillset and not just random chance, then Young has the chance to be one of those players who is ridiculously valuable regardless of his defensive skill (or lack of same): see Ramirez, Manny; Dunn, Adam; and even Thome, Jim.
The RBI from HR don't count in the baserunner-driven-in percentage
bb-ref has a table for those in the “More Stats” link. Delmon is indeed driving in a large number of base-runners. 21% this year, 20% last year. Those are great numbers. Its not Tolbert-ian (26%) but Delmon has played all season and Tolbert, he’s just been so hot right now.
and he's driving in thome, kubel, cuddyer, morneau
SLOW GUYS
and you can put it on the boaaaaaard YES, HELL YES
Delmon
And we all know that there are times that statistics don’t do a guy a favor and this is one of those years. I still get frustrated with Delmon every now and again when he swings at the first pitch after a walk or makes a bad play in the outfield when it should have been routine. But this year, when I watch him take his stance in the batter’s box, he looks SO different then he has in the past couple of years. He’s confident and he’s matured beyond belief. He has been a player who has kept us in the hunt and at the top of the Central when we were short players. When Morneau went down, everybody talked about somebody needing to step up and I believe that it ended up being Delmon on a pretty normal basis. He has his flaws but he has been one of the most important Twins this year in high leverage situations.
Every team needs supplementary offensive bats.
And that’s Delmon. He’s not ever going to be a 5-WAR guy, but if you can continually have three or four batters in the 2-3 range in addition to your mega stars (Mauer & Morneau) then you’ll have a good offense. Young is a big part of that.
Delmon is the good the bad & the ugly.
Hitting is the hard part. No Torii Hunter he will never be defensively but he’s just turning 25 this month, so the guy can get better on defense. Cutting his errors down even 20%-30% next year would be huge. That’s a very realistic number if he devotes his efforts in the offseason to working on his defense. His base running can get better also he just has to use his head for more than a hat rack. He is a very valuable cog in the wheel for the Twins & can be for years to come. Driving in 100 RBI’s is no accident.
Unlikely
Actually defense and baserunning typically peaks earlier than hitting. Delmon will probably have a better offensive season but it is very unlikely his defense or baserunning improves at all. He’s not going to get any faster.
If there's any benefit from experience...
…I’d expect to see it in defense (better understanding of hitters and thus defensive placement) and baserunning (advancements from 1st to 3rd, etc.) as long as the player is still young enough to have speed. Once a player’s speed starts to decline, these things will go down faster than experience can keep them up.
So I’d expect slightly better range and advance baserunning metrics (and even a better stolen base percentage) as Delmon heads through his peak years. Once he hits 30+, however, I’d expect declines in his speed to overwhelm any edge he gains from experience.
I have to disagree about the impact that reducing errors would have.
Going from 4 to 3 is not going to be a noticable difference.
Seems like Delmon's superhot streak has hurt him in people's minds.
If you went back to the beginning of the year and told people we were going to get an .825 OPS and 1.5 WAR out of Delmon, you couldn’t have found a single person to call that “underwhelming.” Probably most of us would have thought you were extremely optimistic.
He’s improved 2.6 WAR over last year’s performance. Not sure how much more progress you can expect, or even hope for.
But Delmon had never managed average.
He was one of the worst players on the team each of the previous 2 years. Going from worst to average is a huge jump. Average, in the context of Delmon Young, is awesome.
Maybe we got Jacque Jones back, just with a different name on the uniform...
Albeit Jacque at the top of his game…
"'Over'? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!"
by rubberbiscuit on Sep 8, 2010 12:23 PM EDT up reply actions
wouldnt 0 Wins above Replacement be the average in theory?
Then again I don’t know if WAR is adjusted to how all of baseball is performing or just to a theoretical “Replacement” guy
by twinscrazy_german on Sep 8, 2010 3:10 PM EDT up reply actions
Average > Replacement
Replacement players are backups, AAA guys. The overall league-wide Wins above Replacement should reconcile to a fixed number yearly. There aren’t more Ws unless there are more games.
Oh okay, I wasn't really sure
So there is an “average WAR” for all MLB players then every year.
Learned another thing :)
by twinscrazy_german on Sep 8, 2010 3:40 PM EDT up reply actions
Not sure 'average WAR' has much meaning
Wins Above Replacement is already using ‘replacement level’ as a baseline (which isn’t actually an objective baseline, but is a mathematically assumed value, but that’s a different rant).
It’s like measuring a bunch of people by height, determining a ‘replacement level’ height, and then averaging the differences in height from the ‘replacement level’. At what point do you just say ’let’s just use the average height’?
Average what?
Average major leaguer? Average professional ballplayer? You’re taking the average of the guys out on the right side of the bell curve. That data will often fail a normality check.
The Sabermatrix is all...just...a sham?
"Don't take life for granted, because tomorrow isn't promised to any one of us." -Kirby Puckett
by less cowbell, more 'neau on Sep 8, 2010 7:30 PM EDT up reply actions
I would say his hot streak has hurt him
Before the hot streak, he was working on stuff, like pitch selection. Then he hit everything fair and hard that he swung at for a month and he stopped taking pitches. Pitchers adjusted and stopped throwing him anything he could drive. For the next month, he had one of the worst slumps of his career. Now he needs to adjust and take those pitches until they throw him something he can drive. Last night was the first time I saw him do that since the hot streak. He even walked (!!) once.
"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot
Excellent point.
That might be the definition of a streaky up-and-down player. The key word there is ‘working’…
"'Over'? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!"
by rubberbiscuit on Sep 8, 2010 12:50 PM EDT up reply actions
Delmon's future
I agree that Delmon is much improved this year, but not yet a dominant hitter. The best part of this, however, is the fact that he’s actually showing improvement that gives you confidence of what he can be in a year or two. This year, he has hit like a decent 5th-6th place hitter from mostly the 7th spot in the lineup. At this point, it’s not hard to imagine he could be 100 RBI guy on a regular basis.
Personally, I’d like to eventually see Delmon batting between Mauer and Morneau. For some reason, though, Gardy has become allergic to the idea of splitting up the M&M boys. Still, the idea of having bullpen lefties routinely facing Delmon (in order to face both Mauer and Morneau) fills me with excitement. -Not to mention all the fastballs he would get. If he was given this protection in the lineup, I think you’d see him become a dominant middle-of-the-order hitter.
Young’s Achilles’ heel, however, is his defense. It’s not likely to get much better going forward. In my opinion, Delmon has a future as a DH most of the time. Unfortunately for the Twins, that role is being filled by a number of players already, and there’s no other decent option to put in left on a regular basis. -But being a DH would probably increase his value to the Twins rather than decreasing it (due to his horrid defense).
I’d honestly like to see the Twins deal Kubel in the offseason and let Delmon get the lion’s share of PA’s as DH. In order to do that, we’d have to count on Revere to play a lot or go get another outfielder who can actually field the ball (or both).
-Flip
I'd be in favor of maybe dealing Delmon in the off season, taking advantage of his 100+ RBIs
and keeping the LH Kubel for DH and part time outfield. Getting a decent player or prospect in return might be possible…
"'Over'? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!"
by rubberbiscuit on Sep 8, 2010 5:09 PM EDT up reply actions
Other benefit from Delmon - putting him 4
There’s another benefit from Delmon that I think people over look. People talk about RBIs as being just a function of hitting with people on base, so it’s dependent on having people on base.
However, I would suspect, that if you look at the free swingers (Guerrero, Delmon, etc.), they probably get a higher than expected RBI rate, because they don’t walk. Clogging the bases is great, but if there are two people on base, and you walk Morneau to get to a weaker hitter, that walk isn’t worth nearly as much as a hit.
Putting Delmon between Mauer and Morneau has the added benefit that he will hit with people on base, and get protection from the guy behind him. He should see more good pitches to hit, and have a good chance of bringing in the runs, since he gets a lot of hits, per plate appearance (which is higher than BA, which is based on at-bats).
or should it be third and move Mauer to second when Hudson is gone?
but no, then Mauer would have to become an infielder….
by twinscrazy_german on Sep 8, 2010 7:27 PM EDT up reply actions
the problem with wpa
is that it doesn’t take into account fielding and base running
if there is a fielding blunder it goes against the pitcher. if there is a base running gaffe it goes against the hitter.
i like the idea of the stat, but it needs to be more robust.
by gardy's dog house on Sep 8, 2010 3:05 PM EDT reply actions
What we thought of Young before the season
In Jesse’s preseason predictions of offensive production (all the way back in January) he expected DY to have .283/.321/.454 numbers.
CHONE actually saw him as 501 PA, .305/.339/.454, 12 HR, 60 RBI
So in my mind 488 PA, .303/.334/.488, 16 HR, 97 RBI sounds a lot like Young exceeding our expectations.
I don’t know how our outfield+DH will look like going into next season (not that winning in the playoffs and getting there in the first place shouldnt be the primary focus right now), but I have to believe that any moves the FO is considering with Kubel/Young depend first on what they expect their top OF prospects timetables to and secondly and maybe more importantly on if we can convince Thome to come back for another year. (If I was him, I would do it unless I won the WS)
by twinscrazy_german on Sep 8, 2010 3:24 PM EDT reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recent FanPosts
In Association With
Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
- Josh Hamilton on public relapse: ‘It was just wrong. That’s all it comes down to.’
- Photo: The Marlins’ ridiculous-looking home run sculpture is almost complete
- Yankees GM Brian Cashman lures alleged stalker into police dragnet
- Report: Josh Hamilton had a relapse with alcohol
- Happy Birthday Boy! Wes Ferrell, the best-hitting pitcher of all-time, would be 104
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
