Over the last two years, Domonic Brown has been better at baseball than Delmon Young
What if I told you that, according to virtually every objective measure available to us, Dom Brown has been a better baseball player than Delmon Young over the last two seasons?
Over the last two years, Domonic Brown has been better at baseball than Delmon Young
David Murphy
I'm already on record as saying that the Delmon Young signing makes some sense for the Phillies. At $750,000, there is not a lot of downside.
That being said, there is some downside, and that downside is the potential that the signing of Young precludes Domonic Brown from entering a season with the confidence that comes with knowing that he has a regular major league job. Now, I know there is a faction of Phillies fans that is suffering from Dom Brown fatigue. That faction would likely argue that 422 plate appearances is as much of an opportunity as most players can hope for at the major league level. And in the 422 plate appearances that Brown has logged over the last couple of seasons, he hasn't put up the numbers that you would expect out of a prospect who was as highly touted as he was.
But do me a favor and forget about the expectations for a moment. Instead of comparing Brown to the player you were led to believe he would be, why not compare him to the player who the Phillies just signed to replace him as their top option in right field heading into spring training.
What if I told you that, according to virtually every objective measure available to us, Dom Brown has been a better baseball player than Delmon Young over the last two seasons?
Over the last two years, Brown has 21 doubles, 3 triples, 10 home runs, 46 walks and 2 hit by pitches in 422 plate appearances. That means he has produced a total of 194 bases in 422 plate appearances (two bases for a double, three for triple, one for a walk, etc.). That's an average of 0.46 bases per plate appearances. Over the last two seasons, Delmon Young has produced an average of 0.43 bases per plate appearance.
Power? Young has the edge in home runs, averaging one every 34.9 at bats, while Brown checks in at one every 37.1 at bats. But Brown has an edge in extra base hits, averaging one every 10.9 ABs, with Young checking in at one every 13.1 ABs. Of Brown's 89 hits, 38 percent have gone for extra bases. Of Young's 280 hits, 29 percent have gone for extra bases.
Contact? Brown has struck out in 16 percent of his plate appearances. Young has struck out in 18 percent of his PAs. Advantage: Brown.
RBIs? Young has the edge there, averaging one every 8.1 plate appearances (Brown: 9.4 PAs). But Brown has scored runs at a higher rate, because he reaches base more (one every 8.6 PAs compared to one every 10.3 PAs for Young). And since RBIs and runs both equal the same number on the scoreboard, it is worth noting that Brown has produced an RBI or a run every 5.0 PAs, while Young has done so every 5.1 PAs. So even if you believe that runs and RBIs are valid metrics to measure performance, Brown has the slight edge there.
So what am I missing? Brown reaches base more, creates more bases with his hits, strikes out less, and produces runs at a higher rate. Over the course of a 600 plate appearance season, at the rates both players posted in 2011 and 2012, Young would give you a grand total of 2 more home runs, 30 more singles and 11 more RBIs at the expense of 40 more walks/HBPs, 4 more doubles, 3 more triples, 8 fewer strikeouts, 10 fewer double plays, and 12 more runs scored.
Again, at the rates both players have posted over the last two seasons, this is how a season of 600 plate appearances would look:
Domonic Brown: 600 PAs, 195 times on base, 14 home runs, 30 doubles, 4 triples, 98 strikeouts, 64 RBIs, 70 runs, 11 GIDPs.
Delmon Young: 600 PAs, 179 times on base, 16 home runs, 26 doubles, 1 triple, 106 strikeouts, 75 RBIs, 58 runs, 21 GIDPs.
Really, the best anybody can say for Young is that the two players' production has been similar. The big difference, of course, is that we at least have enough of a sample size to say that Young can be expected to give the Phillies mediocre production. Maybe you think we have enough of a sample size to say the same thing about Brown, and that he has already peaked at 24 years old, and that Young after seven years in the majors has more upside.
I'm just not sure that it makes sense to give Delmon Young his fourth opportunity to fulfil his potential before giving Domonic Brown his first real one.
The flaw in this incredibly one-sided and biased article is the writer insists on looking only at Delmon Young's last two seasons. Obviously 2012 was a down season for Delmon Young, which is why he is now forced to take a massive pay cut. The writer conveniently makes no mention of Delmon Young's 2010 season, the best season of his career. It's not like Delmon Young is 40 years old and is unable to duplicate numbers from a few seasons ago. The writer asks: what am I missed here? What this writer seems to be missing is the ability to write an article about the Phillies that is not completely biased.— Freedom Fries- only a complete Rube who doesn't actually watch or evaluate players would even consider saying ths guy is a starting outfielder, ...here are excerpts from the Good Phight (thanks to "S" for referencing this): "Delmon can be very, very, very difficult to watch, and that applies to anything he might be doing...exceptionally gifted at looking like he's not trying, even at the plate ...lethargy of a kid forced to be in gym class...fell off that pace over his last year-plus in Detroit, putting up a 92 OPS that equals what Nick Punto and Skip Schumaker have done over the past two seasons...absolutely dreadful to watch on the bases, indecisive and increasingly immobile, prone to colossal mistakes...averaged nearly 10 runs per season below average with the glove ...numbers can't even come close to capturing the damage Delmon does in the outfield.. stumbles about ...with a certain degree of random variation built in... Confusion clouds his face as he sticks his glove up awkwardly at the last second ... doesn't help that the results tended to be exceedingly poor...
if (when) he proves inadequate or they get the sudden urge to stop torpedoing whatever value Domonic Brown has left, we can assume they'll have little hesitation about demoting him to pinch-hitter, or even releasing him...It's still money, though ... toward something that figures to benefit the Phillies very, very little, and to hurt them very, very much if (as they say) they're really going to put him in right every day. More than that, it's a roster spot. You only get 25 of those...wasting one of their 25 on a player of very limited ability and defensive flexibility. There are guys who can do what Delmon does better, and there are guys who can do a lot more things than Delmon does, for about the same investment."— warbiscuit - given the Nats and Braves youth and superiority over the Phils in every aspect of the game and at virtualy every position, and given the Rube's complete decimation of this franchise, the Phils have no chance of competing in the NL East for many many years... expect Cliff Lee to be discarded by the Cluless Rube sometime this year in another terrible trade for virtually nothing... and the only issue is who will be the g.m. when Hamels is traded --will it be abother clearance sale by the clueless imbecile or will a g.m. with half a brain finally be in place to try to preside over a new era --the rest of the decade looks to be hopeless and Ruben Amaro -when he is finally gone -- will be unlikely to ever see another job in baseball— warbiscuit
- contrasting Clueless Rube to intelligent g.m.s in Washinton and Atlanta is all you need to see ... amazingly instead of improving the team one iota from its medicore 81-81 record last year, Rube has taken it further into the gutter with the worst corner fielders in baseball... what happened to money saved from salary dumps last July? Revere, M.Young and D.Young have very poor on base percentages --exacerbating Phils worst problem -- and the Youngs are atrotious fielders to the extent anyone even tried them in the past year ... Revere --who is supposedly "good" fielder -- can't throw. New pitchers are Lannan, Cook and suspect Adams...puhleeze --thus team -- still with one of the highest budgets in baseball -- not only has little chance of competing, it will likely be unwatchable...
calling the Rube "clueless" is the best that could be said because the alternative -- that the Phils moves over past 4 years were part of a "plan" -- woudl be tantamount to an accusation of deliberate "sabotage" like Tim Brown accuses Callahan of— warbiscuit - Talk about clueless, you are, war boy. So tell us how Rube was going to get all these top dollar players to come in here? How and who was he supposed to trade to get an all-star outfield? C'mon, you know so much. Please inform us of your overreaching sports intelligence so we can all petition Montgomery to fire Rube and hire you. — mike l
- at least some more fans are beginning to get it --see www.thegoodphight.com/2013/1/23/3905252/done-with-ruben-amaro-jr-a-special-comment— warbiscuit
- Also panned at Crashburn Alley. Pretty much every Phillies related blog and sports site I have respect for is panning the move to sign Young.
http://crashburnalley.com/2013/01/24/failure-in-philadelphia/— s - I think once you look at it, there is no way Delmon will be an everyday player, look at his splits last year he is way way way better against lefties to the tune of a 308 average and 833 ops than he is against righties. He might get an early shot at everyday play but he will probably settle in as a platoon guy.— mdb20
- And Delmon Young's career batting average is still miles higher than anything Dom Brown has strung together in a given month at any point. His 112 RBI season in 2010 is double what Brown has produced in parts of 3 seasons combined
Here's the problem with Dom Brown. The Phillies front office basically talked themselves into how good of a "prospect" he ever actually was. He was never on any scouting radar, not even the organization's, until 2010 when he started lighting up AA pitching. Here's the other thing. Sometimes prospects don't turn into Mickey Mantle. They could've moved this guy a half dozen times and gotten something valuable in return but instead continually blocked trades because he's "untouchable".
And now he's behind a guy who will make half a mil if he simply stops supersizing his value meals. That should tell you all you need to know about Rube's talent evaluation - thanks "s" once again for the cross-reference: I like to excerpt because many naive Philly fans never think beyond "rah rah we're great.." and think that its disloyal to root for a team and objectively critique them ..here's from crashburnalley: "Failure..Four years ago, the Phillies had a ... Minor League system with high-upside talent, ...formidable offenses ...starting rotation, and enough payroll space to purchase a small tropical island. Now, ....bereft of young talent, ... offense ... withered away,...
look at Amaro’s tenure at this point in time as anything but an utter failure, and it isn’t as if this failure came out of nowhere. The disaster that was the Ryan Howard contract extension could have been seen from outer space; relying on a left fielder and third baseman (Raul Ibanez and Placido Polanco, respectively) in their mid- and late- 30′s to stay healthy and productive was a fool’s errand; and trading the farm for an incremental-at-best improvement in World Series-winning odds was deplorable from the beginning.
... comments Amaro made yesterday ...(paraphrasing): “I don’t care about walks; I care about production.” ... illogical ...Phillies are known as one of the least forward-thinking organizations in baseball, still relying heavily on the observations of scouts and little on those utilizing statistics....gone nowhere fast by relying on antiquated theories and tools..."— warbiscuit - Cholly is always saying that a starter needs to earn the position. So be it with Delmon Young. The article is great, and I think Dom Brown should get a chance, at least in a platoon. Delmon Young's splits show poor production against right handed pitching.— jerseyshorefan
- crashburn conclusion: "... some point in the near future, the Phillies will fire Amaro, ending a disappointing era of Phillies baseball. They must use this opportunity to join the 21st century of baseball by hiring a GM who knows that platoons are useful, corner infielders aren’t as valuable as their middle infield companions, and bullpens are best done on the cheap. And that GM should hire a manager who knows that sacrifice bunts are often more hurtful than helpful, that matching up players in situations of favorable handedness is ideal (i.e. not Ryan Howard vs. lefty relievers), and leaving starters in to pitch a meaningless eighth inning of an 8-1 game is extremely risky. The Amaro era is Exhibit A that overseeing baseball teams, as it operated previously, is inefficient at best and actively destructive at worst."— warbiscuit
- I disagree with Warbiscuit that "very poor on base percentages" is the Phillies "worst problem". The Phillies practically always have runners on base, and they practically always leave those runners on base, as I'm sure Charlie Manuel and Ruben Amaro know all too well.— Freedom Fries
- Well their OBP has dropped for 4 straight years so it's a fact that it's gotten worse. But they're changing that approach at the plate any day now ... just as soon as they sign a few more guys who suck at getting on base. — s
- That is at the plate right.....but how do you measure how many fly balls he misplayed or could not judge .....The kid is flat out stupid and should go the AL and be a designated hitter.....25 years playing baseball and any high school or college player has a better chance of catching a fly ball........— nuggett
