Evaluating where Chris Young has improved

by shoewizard on Oct 11, 2008 12:35 PM EDT

There are some positives to take out of Young's season. (We all know the negatives and they have been discussed all season, HR's were down, K's were up, Steals were down) But I want to focus on the positive for CY, because I think there are a lot.

1.) He increased his walks from 43 to 62, and his walk % from 0.69 to 0.89

2.) His OBP went from .295 to .315, an increase of 20 points in an environment where league average OBP went down.

3.) While his HR's were down 10, his XBH hit total actually increased from 64 to 72, thanks to a huge jump in doubles and triples.

4. ) His BABIP went from .260 to .304. Thats not luck in this case. Remember hitters have more control over their BABIP than pitchers do, and in fact Young's Line Drive Rate went from 15.1% to 19.1%.

5.) For the second year in a row his second half numbers were much better than his first half numbers. Selective begin and end points, to be sure, but perhaps an indication he is capable of making in season adjustments. I fully admit to being quite disheartened by his first half. I lamented quite often how he seemed to be making a huge step backward at the time. But with the perspective of the entire season, and without the ever present emotion of frustration during the actual games, it's easier to take a longer term view here.

6.) His situational hitting with RISP and Men on base improved a great deal in 2008. I think we all acknowledge that due to small sample sizes, BA W RISP and the like are not very predictive, but he went from awful in these situations to decent.

CY's Splits page

7.) His sac bunting improved...he went from 1 to 6 SH, and he was much more willing to show bunt attempt for base hit and get the 3B to cheat. I've always felt this was key for Young's success because he pulls so many hard grounders and low liners to the left side. So he gets the double benefit of utilizing his speed AND increasing his chances of getting a hit past a cheating 3rd basemen. I'd like to see more of it from him in 2009. He still needs to improve his bunting for basehit attempt %. He was just 3 for 12 when attempting to bunt for a hit. He and Justin Upton both had just 3 Bunt hits, and that was tied for just 40th in the majors. Guys this fast need to improve on this. But just showing the attempts will help him get more hits in the long run.

He's still got a lot to work on course. Pitch recognition being first and foremost. For example the major league average for Percentage of strikes looking is 27%. In 2007, Young's was 32%, and that went even higher in 2008, to 34%. We all saw it all year long....he just stared at too many hittable strikes. If CY can learn to recognize strikes a little better, and swing and not miss those hittable pitches, pitchers will start being much more careful with him and not just pound the strike zone like they do now, knowing they can get ahead.

Finally, the other positives for CY are that he's still only 25, and that he just came off an excellent defensive season in which he established himself as a top tier defensive centerfielder. I believe going forward CY has an excellent chance to continue to improve, and that when it's all said and done, we will have determined he was well worth the contract extension.

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How to edit?

I tried to edit just now and fix the splits page link, but it didn’t work.

Thanks

by shoewizard on Oct 11, 2008 12:41 PM EDT 0 recs

I'm not

sure you can. Jim? Charmer?

We are gonna get drunk with Adam Dunn and we're gonna head-butt some damn kangaroos.

by soco on Oct 11, 2008 12:50 PM EDT up 0 recs

Sorry, I guess you can't :(

Only super-editors can. Was the link okay, you just wanted it clickable? I can do that… but I’m on my way out, so anything else Jim will have to do. :)

by snakecharmer on Oct 11, 2008 2:08 PM EDT up 0 recs

yeah, clickable is ok

It’s just a link to his splits page. Trying to make things easier for the readier…(Ha…..I might want to learn how to be less verbose to achieve that goal)

by shoewizard on Oct 11, 2008 2:11 PM EDT up 0 recs

Nice post

Good optomistic angle here. Particularly like the bunting perspective. I know it’s been talked about over the season, but has anyone figured out why the drop in running this year? Some injury was there, I know, but it was really evident to both fans and opposing teams I think.

by Counsellmember on Oct 11, 2008 3:07 PM EDT 0 recs

Thanks for the CY evaluation

Indeed, without the in-game frustration, it is easier to take an overall view of all the players, and this season there was plenty of frustration on a day-to-day basis with this team.

by TwinnerA on Oct 11, 2008 4:12 PM EDT 0 recs

Thoughts and concerns

Appreciate the post, and well-deserving of promoting to the front-page. Numbers tie to your notes:

1+2) These were the best things about the season. As noted elsewhere, his OBP over the past couple of years has been among the worst of all players in the majors, and simply has to improve, regardless of how good his defense is, in order for him to contribute, especially if Melvin is going to throw him in the #2 spot. Another 20 points next year on the OBP are needed for that to be anything but a liability.

3) Part of the reason for that is he had 75 more plate-appearances this year than in 2007. His overall ISO (isolated power, measured by extra-bases per at bat) dropped overall from .230 to .195. To me, it looked like the balls which were leaving the yard last year, were hitting off the wall and turning into doubles.

4) Probably inevitable to see his BABIP returning to something nearer league-average levels. Surprised it went up by 44 points, but his BA only increased by eleven. I’d be curious to see how his BABIP compares to other players with similar LD rates, to give us an idea of what would be ‘normal’ for a player of his type.

5) I’d likely be happier about his second-half improvement, if we hadn’t seen it happen last year. It was as if he forgot how to bat in the 2007-08 off-season, and that leaves me concerned that he’ll do the same this season. Stephen Drew kinda did the same thing – his best month in 2007 was September, but the OPS there was almost identical to his first-half OPS in 2008, so he carried that forward and built on it. Young regressed sharply.

6) That probably ties to the BABIP thing a good bit, as Young’s BABIP with RISP during 2007 was only .225, 43 points less than with the bases empty. Again, an improvement was probably likely, simply due to regression to the mean.

7) I’d certainly like to see him using his speed more – both to get on-base and once he’s there. The drop in SB this year was very disappointing; especially the drop in his success rate, from 81.8% in 2007, to 73.7% this season. If he’d been taking the extra-bases with his legs, that would have helped to offset the drop in the numbers coming off his bat.

I certainly concur about his defense [do you have the Fielding Bible number for him this year and last, so we can compare?]. He should still improve over the next couple of seasons, and if he can just get that OBP up some more, his extension will prove entirely worthwhile.

by Jim McLennan on Oct 11, 2008 4:46 PM EDT 0 recs

Well........

1-2: Agreed, he needs to continue to increase his OBP. In Young’s case, the only way he is really going to do that in a significant way is to strike out less. More balls in play will = more hits and better BA, and that might then translate into pitchers being more careful with him, and increase his walks even further. If Chris Young can get his OBP to .340 he will be a borderline all star, as it will probably come with a SLG % close to .500. There were 16 “true” centerfielders last year that qualified for the batting title.

Raw OPS

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/8ZCK

OPS+

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/JSyZ

3.) Of course exchanging a double for a homer is a net loss, and is going to affect ISO, Slg etc. I wasn’t trying to present the XBH total as being just as good as a slugging performance as last year. Clearly it’s not. My point really was to show that he still has significant power. If his HR went down and he didn’t at least hit more doubles and triples I’d really be worried about his power. His HR per Fly Ball rate in 2007 was 15.6,. It dropped to 11.2 in 2008 and he hit fewer fly balls to begin with.(more popups and GB and LD replaced the flyballs)

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=3882&position=OF

I’d bet his HR totals go back up in 2009, my projections will probably end up with him splitting the difference between 07 and 08, but I haven’t actually done it yet.

4.) There was nothing inevitable about his improved BABIP. It was directly the result of more line drives and groundballs. In 07 he had a low line drive and and high fb rate, and that combination almost always results in a below avg BABIP.

Averages
NL .298
AL .302
ML .300

Obviously NL lower because it includes pitchers. So Young was right at league average, and his LD % was league avg…and that is more or less where you would expect it to be. While LD% will influence BABIP more than other types of balls in play, the entire profile of popups, GB’s, FB all need to be taken into account.

If you go to Hardball times, and use the drop down files to pull up THT Batting, and choose ML, and lines to view about 300, you can then sort the entire table by BABIP, by LD%,. etc, and get a rough idea. Be sure to look at the other BIP types for the guys surrounding Young in the tables.

5.) You need to get over the bitterness of Young’s first half Jim…it will eat you alive. ;-)

6.) Agreed.

7.) The reduction in steals didn’t bother me so much as the overall decline in his baserunning value. Stolen bases are overrated anyway. They have value…but I believe that value is often overstated.

According to Bill James Baserunning metric, in 2007 Young was +4 in Extra Bases taken and +15 for his SB, for a total of +19
In 2008, he was -5 in Extra Bases taken +4 for stolen bases, for total of -1

Baserunning Analysis
A hitter’s overall contribution on the bases. His basestealing, avoidance of the double play, and success at taking the extra base while avoiding being thrown out.

For a summary of each runner, look at the far right column called “Net Gain”. Zero is average. Plus numbers are above average and negative numbers are below average.

For Defense, Fielding Bible +/-

In 2007 Young was -3, and ranked 21st among MLB CF
In 2008 Young was +23 and ranked 3rd among MLB CF

by shoewizard on Oct 11, 2008 6:21 PM EDT up 0 recs