http://0rz.tw/zVKXH Posted by David Golebiewski on Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 9:06 am By this point, Arizona Diamondbacks center fielder Chris Young was supposed to be a five-tool force. Originally a Chicago White Sox prospect, Young was Arizona’s prized pickup in the December 2005 trade that sent Javier Vazquez to the South Side. He seemingly had few faults: Baseball America dubbed him a potential “30-30 man” and a graceful fly catcher, ranking Young behind only Justin Upton in the D-Backs’ organization prior to the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Young’s numbers were equally impressive: he batted .261/.365/.503 in A-Ball, then skipped a level and improved to .277/.377/.545 in Double-A. With Triple-A Tucson in 2006, Young posted a .276/.363/.532 triple-slash. All the while, he showed patience and pop, while paring down his whiff rate: Low-A: 12.1 BB%, 31.3 K%, .242 Isolated Power Double-A: 12.7 BB%, 27.7 K%, .268 Isolated Power Triple-A: 11.1 BB%, 17.7 K%, .256 Isolated Power The righty batter made his big league debut late in 2006, and became a full-time starter in 2007. Prior to the start of the 2008 campaign, Young inked a five-year, $28 million contract extension , keeping him in Arizona through at least 2013 (there’s an option for 2014 as well). The deal bought out his arbitration seasons, plus one or two years of free agency. Young struggled during his rookie season (0.9 Wins Above Replacement in ‘07), but the deal looked shrewd: the Diamondbacks locked up a potential star into his early thirties, keeping him under contract at reasonable rates through his peak seasons. As the 2010 season approaches, however, Young has yet to live up to the prospect billing. Two-thousand eight looked like a step in the right direction, as he managed 2.2 WAR. But last year turned disastrous, with a replacement-level showing (0.1 WAR) and a demotion to the minors in August. After three seasons of regular playing time, why are we still waiting for Young to get it going? At the dish, Young has authored a .235/.307/.438 line in a little more than 1,900 plate appearances. Considering Chase Field’s cushy offensive environment, that’s not especially impressive. Fangraphs has a stat called wRC+, which adjusts a hitter’s performance for park and league factors, setting it on a scale where 100 is average. Young’s wRC+ in the bigs is just 91 (nine percent below average). He has shown power, with a .202 ISO. And, Young has gradually increased his rate of free passes taken, while taking a cut at fewer junk pitches thrown outside of the strike zone: 2007: 6.9 BB%, 22.9 Outside-Swing% 2008: 8.9 BB%, 20.4 Outside-Swing% 2009: 11.8 BB%, 18 Outside Swing% (the MLB average for Outside-Swing is about 25 percent) However, Young has also come up empty with great frequency. His punch out rate has climbed, and his percentage of contact is well below-average: 2007: 24.8 K%, 85.5 Z-Contact%, 76.7 Contact% 2008: 26.4 K%, 85.3 Z-Contact%, 77.5 Contact% 2009: 30.7 K%, 82.1 Z-Contact%, 73.9 Contact% (Z-Contact is the percentage of contact made within the strike zone; the MLB average is about 88 percent. Contact is a batter’s overall contact rate; the MLB average is around 81 percent.) As Young’s teammate Mark Reynolds can attest, whiffing often does not preclude a hitter from having success. According to The Book, a generic out costs a team -0.299 runs. A strikeout costs -0.301 runs. For all the talk of “productive outs,” there’s very little difference between a regular out and a K, save for a situation in which there are less than two outs and a runner is on third base, or when there are no outs and a runner is on second base. But in Young’s case, his contact rates are symptomatic of a severe allergy to anything off-speed. Per Fangraphs’ Pitch Type Values, Young has performed -1.55 runs worse than average per 100 pitches against sliders during his major league career, while coming in at -1.54 runs/100 pitches against changeups. He has been below-average against curveballs, too (-0.15 runs/100 pitches). On a per-pitch basis, Young has been the 11th-worst batter in the majors against sliders over the past three seasons, and the second-worst against changeups. Opposing pitchers have progressively tossed him more slide-pieces: Young got a slider 18.1% of the time in 2007, 21.9% in 2008 and 23.4% this past year. Against fastballs, he has managed a healthy +0.67 run value per 100 pitches. So, Young has been able to handle the heat. But even there, he has some issues. As Dave Allen showed last summer, Young has an affinity for letter- high cheddar, swinging at a substantial percentage of fastballs thrown high in the zone. High fastballs, as Jonathan Hale shows here, induce pop ups far more often than other pitch types. Which leads us to our next point: Young pops the ball up like nobody’s business. His infield/fly ball rate was 12.7% in 2007, 16.8% in 2008 and a whopping 22.4% in 2009. Over the past three seasons, Young’s 16.9 percent pop up rate is the second-highest in the majors (Oakland’s Mark Ellis is first). At first glance, one might be inclined to look at Young’s career .276 BABIP and say, “man, he’s had some tough luck.” But all of those pop ups are essentially automatic outs, and conspire to bring down that BABIP. Young has been Pedro Cerrano-like against breaking stuff and changeups, and while he hits fastballs well overall, he also gets jammed more than just about anyone. But what about his defense? In its 2007 Prospect Handbook, Baseball America called the 6-2, 200 pounder a “pure center fielder with a long stride that allows him to get to a lot of balls.” Here’s how Young has rated, according to various defensive metrics: Ultimate Zone Rating, per 150 defensive games 2007: -9.1 UZR/150 2008: +0.6 UZR/150 2009: -9.8 UZR/150 Total: -5.8 UZR/150 Fielding Bible Runs, per 150 defensive games 2007: 0 2008: +8.7 2009: +5.3 Total: +4.7 runs/150 Total Zone Runs, per 150 defensive games 2007: -13.9 2008: -4.9 2009: +5.3 Total: -4.5 runs/150 John Dewan’s Plus/Minus fielding system considers Young above-average, but Mitchel Lichtman’s UZR and Sean Smith’s Total Zone aren’t fans. It’s a crude way of doing it, but if we average those three systems together, Young rates as about a -2 run fielder per season. He’s not terrible, but he’s not really an asset, either. On the base paths, Young hasn’t been as much of a threat to steal since his rookie year. He nabbed 27 bags in 33 attempts in 2007 (an 81.8 percent success rate), 14 in 19 tries in 2008 (73.7 percent) and 11 in 15 in 2009 (73.3 percent). In terms of Equivalent Stolen Base Runs, Young was average in ‘07 (0.0 EqSBR) and actually cost his team slightly in 2008 (-1.7 EqSBR) and 2009 (-0.71 EqSBR). As an overall base runner, measured by Equivalent Base Running Runs (which includes all base runner advances), Young was +0.6 in 2007, +0.8 in 2008 and -2.1 in 2009. Young will play nearly the entire 2010 season at the age of 26, so it’s not as though we should stick a fork in him and declare him a major bust. But clearly, he is entering a pivotal point in his career. PECOTA projects Young for a .248/.331/.460 triple-slash next year, with slightly below-average defense (-2 runs). Sean Smith’s CHONE forecasts a more grim .229/.320/.387, with -2.5 run D. Chris Young isn’t hopeless. But at this point, he has a ways to go in order to be a quality regular, much less a star. --

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