Delmon Young Is Killing Me.

On November 29th, 2007, the Minnesota Twins traded pitcher Matt Garza and shortstop Jason Bartlett to Tampa for infielder Brendan Harris and outfielders Jason Pridie and Delmon Young. Delmon Young, the first-overall pick by Tampa, was the key to the trade for the Twins. The trade, at the time, was heralded as a "steal" by new Twins GM Billy Smith and yet another example of the Twins making other teams look stupid in trades. I must admit that I was completely in favor of the trade when it happened, and had visions (we all know how they end up) of Young hitting .310 with 25 HR's and 120 RBI's for the Twins.

Think again.

This trade is working out to be one of the worst in Twins history. It turns out that Tampa received a better-than-average starter in Garza and a self-proclaimed TEAM MVP in Jason Bartlett. Meanwhile, the Twins received a serviceable utility infielder in Harris and a complete enigma in Delmon Young. It took me until May 16th, 2008, to become fed up with Delmon, when I wrote this in a post on that day:

What the hell is going on? OK - it's only 40 games into the season, but come on. I heard "possible M-V-P" mentioned in the same sentence with Delmon Young when the Twins acquired him from Tampa Bay. He is supposedly a specialist at driving the ball and hitting for power. Were they talking about his crazy brother Dimitri?

Check out Delmon's stats:152 AB, 40 Hits, .263 Batting Average, 3 doubles (bloops), 1 triple (parallel universe), ZERO HR'sWhen Delmon comes up to bat now, I wonder to myself "will he ground out weakly to second or short?" He can't hit the ball to the outfield. What the hell is going on? Gardenhire has already dropped him from 5th to 7th in the lineup.

Articles are being written about him.The most confounding aspect Delmon Young is that, according to reports, he doesn't think anything is wrong. According to Pat Ruesse, he is not listening to hitting coach Joe Vavra, and refuses to change his swing. He seems to be a Contrarian in the vein of Randy Moss and Latrell Sprewell. MVP? Not this year.

Well, it's now June 9th, 2009, and I simply can't take it anymore. A year later, more articles are being written about Young's struggles. Let's look at his current stats:

Batting average: .236
Home Runs: 1
Runs Batted In: 14
On Base %: .275
Slugging %: .268 (Two-sixty-eight!!!!!)

So Young is hitting poorly. That means he is playing excellent defense, right? NO! Check out what Aaron Gleeman from MinnPost has to say about Young's overall performance:

"...Gomez offsets some of his terrible hitting with an excellent glove, but Delmon Young has been useless on both sides of the ball. In fact, at 12.2 runs below replacement level offensively and defensively, he's been the single worst all-around player in the AL through two months. Young has hit .239/.282/.275 in 117 plate appearances, which is good for a .557 OPS. No other corner outfielder in the league with that much playing time has an OPS below .640.

Not only has Young failed to make any significant strides at the plate for the third straight season, he's actually regressed from last year's poor performance. Young was one of the most undisciplined hitters in baseball last season, but this time around he's struck out twice as often while drawing even fewer walks. Beyond that, his power has gone from bad to non-existent as he's managed just one homer and one double in 109 at-bats while once again ranking among the AL leaders in ground-ball percentage.

Believe it or not, being the AL's worst-hitting outfielder only scratches the surface of Young's awfulness because he plays an offense-driven position that's home to many big bats and complements his lack of production at the plate with horrendous defense in left field. On a per-inning basis, Young has been the second-worst corner outfielder in the league defensively behind only Jose Guillen, and since joining the Twins last year, Ultimate Zone Rating has him 23.1 runs below average on defense alone."

Wow.

When Delmon comes to bat, blood rushes to my head. I grit my teeth. I know a strikeout or a week groundout to second is coming. I keep hearing stories about how Delmon CRUSHES the ball to left in batting practice, convincing the coaches that he is "back on track." Then, when the game begins, he shifts all of his weight to his front foot and slaps the ball weakly to the right side of the infield if he hits it at all. He is baffled by sliders. Every time he strikes out, he walks back to the dugout with a look on his face that is somewhere in between "nobody say one word to me" and "anybody have any gum?" This guy was the FIRST OVERALL PICK IN THE DRAFT.

Now, I am willing to cut Delmon some slack because he went through a very hard time when he mother passed away earlier this year. I understand this was very hard on him, and I am sorry to hear that happened. But this performance, and his "standoffish attitude" predate his mother's illness.

A few weeks back, I called for the Twins to trade Young for some bullpen help. Now, it's pretty apparent that no GM in their right mind will give up any talent for him. The Twins are stuck with him. On the bright side, Young is young. He's 23 years old, he does have offensive ability if he ever decides to listen to his coaches. On the dark side, he may need another change of scenery before he "gets" the fact that he is on the way to ruining his career. By the way, I hope for his sake and the Twins sake, Young "figures it out" and turns himself around. I wish success to the kid, and I hope I can look back at this post and laugh someday. I will gladly admit to being wrong. So far, it's not looking so good.

The Twins have a history of making great trades, but it sure looks like they got duped on this one.

Jeff