If you haven’t guessed by the terrible Diamondback reference, we’re taking a look at the Arizona Diamondback’s Chris Young.
Statistics are wonderful tool, but watching Chris Young take at-bats should be more than enough to clue you into what’s wrong: Chris Young’s swing has abandon him. Young’s always had a decent swing, and has always managed to remain balanced through the zone which is important for a hard-swinger like Young. Unfortunately in 2009, there seems to be more than a couple kinks in it. His hips aren’t as smooth and his weight isn’t nearly as balanced coming through the zone.
This has expressed itself in a 32 % rate of striking out, which Young has steadily increased after entering the league. In Young’s first season of 2007, he struck out 24.8 % of the time, compared to a 7% BB-Rate. In 2008, Young increased his BB-Rate to 9% but also increased his K-Rate to 26.4%. In addition to striking out more, Young’s also walking a pitiful 6% of the time. Young can function at a .30-.38 BB:K rate given his skill-set, but will have trouble maintain value at his current 0.19 BB:K ratio. All of this has resulted in an awful .233 OBP and .177 batting average.
Young’s contact numbers and plate discipline are equally concerning. Young’s always swung at a slightly below league average rate across the board. There’s a marginal increase in the amount of pitches both inside and outside of the zone, but that is by no means an indicator of trouble. Where the trouble lies is in Young’s contact rate: Young’s increased the amount of contact he’s made on balls outside of the zone, but has dipped to 76.7% contact on balls inside the strike zone. This is down almost a full 10% from Chris Young’s previous two years with the Diamondbacks. So while Young’s overall Contact Percentage remains close to his career average of 77%, he’s making a large portion of his contact on balls outside of the zone.
Breaking this down, it appears as though Young’s much more of a guess-hitter than a read and react hitter. What I mean by this is that Young’s picking a pitch, and picking a zone, and swinging away if he sees his pitch. A couple things spring to mind when evaluating Young’s decreased Zone Contact Rate: 1) ESPN’s Brendan Roberts mentioned that Chris Young had put on weight, and there could be an adjustment period. 2) Chris Young is injured.
Both of these theories are supported by Chris Young failing to hit the ball square. Young’s line-drive percentage has remained consistent, but the amount of pop-ups that he’s hitting is ridiculous. Of the 36 Fly Balls (55% FB,) an astonishing 15 of them have went for infield fly-balls (41.7 IFFB%.)
Chris Young is not only failing to hit the ball squarely, he’s not even coming close. Young’s BABIP may be quite low at .238, especially considering his line-drive percentage of 18.5% but even after this regresses, he’d be lucky to hit .240 the way he’s missing.
In the end, Chris Young falls into the Mike Cameron school of hacking. Even if everything goes perfectly, Young’s only going to hit .250 with 25 HR and 20 SB. It’s unfortunate that Young lacks plate-patience, and you’re pretty much stuck with a .310 OBP.
The good news is, if Young’s failing due to added weight, he should eventually figure his swing out and you could possibly expect better than projected power. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Young better his 2006 numbers if he gets everything sorted out quickly. The bad news is, Young’s still having some issues with league-average breaking balls, and the best case scenario is a batting average of .250.
Young’s power speed combination gives him another two weeks worth of lee-way. Obviously if you’re in a league with a great waiver-wire, go ahead and use it.
