Michael Young’s walk rate is bad. Unlike Delmon Young’s, though, it’s not atrocious. And I think it’s more reasonable to expect Michael Young’s walk rate to significantly improve in 2013 than it is to expect Delmon’s to improve. And it’s definitely more likely we’ll see Michael Young’s walk rate approach league average than it is to see Delmon’s.
In 2000, Young got two plate appearances and didn’t walk in either of them. He made his debut pinch-running for Pedro Valdes with two outs in the top of the ninth and his Rangers down 7-5 on September 29, 2000. The next day he entered in the sixth inning and went 0-for-2 in the game. Scott Service struck him out swinging in his first career at-bat and lefty Todd Belitz got him on a fly ball to deep left to end the game. The A’s beat Young’s Rangers 23-2 that day.
The table below shows Michael Young’s walk rates overall and against lefties and righties in every year since 2000. It also shows the average MLB walk rate for that season:
| Year | MLB AVG BB% | BB% | vs L | vs R |
| 2001 | 8.5 | 6.1 | 7.4 | 5.6 |
| 2002 | 8.7 | 6.5 | 5.5 | 6.8 |
| 2003 | 8.5 | 5.0 | 3.8 | 5.6 |
| 2004 | 8.6 | 6.0 | 8.3 | 5.1 |
| 2005 | 8.2 | 7.9 | 8.9 | 7.6 |
| 2006 | 8.4 | 6.4 | 8.2 | 5.8 |
| 2007 | 8.5 | 6.8 | 7.7 | 6.5 |
| 2008 | 8.7 | 7.8 | 8.9 | 7.4 |
| 2009 | 8.9 | 7.9 | 11.8 | 6.4 |
| 2010 | 8.5 | 7.0 | 8.4 | 6.4 |
| 2011 | 8.1 | 6.8 | 6.5 | 6.9 |
| 2012 | 8.0 | 5.1 | 6.0 | 4.8 |
| Career | - | 6.6 | 7.6 | 6.3 |
So Young has failed to match the NL walk rate for any year of his career. That’s less than ideal. The best offensive year of his career is 2005 and it’s also the year he came the closest. He hit .331 for the Rangers that season with 24 home runs, but walked in just 58 of his 732 plate appearances. There were 150 players across both leagues in 2005 with at last 500 plate appearances and Young’s walk rate among those was in the middle of the pack. 7.9% put him at 84th among the 150.
In 2012, Young’s walk rate was 5.1%, which is the worst mark of his career other than 2003. His walk rate against righties of 4.8% was the worst for his career and his 6.0% walk rate against lefties was the worst it had been since 2003.
His walk rate against lefties was down, but it’s the walk rate against righties that really hammered him in 2012.
From 2003 to 2010, Young’s walk rate against lefties ranged from 7.7% to 11.8% and averaged 8.9%. That dropped way off in 2011, down to 6.5%, and dropped again down to 6.0% in 2012.
The bigger drop, though, was against right-handed pitching. Coming into 2012, Young’s walk percentage against rigties over the last five seasons had ranged from 6.4% to 7.4% with an average of 6.7%. In ’12, that plummeted all the way to 4.8%.
As I pointed out in this post, the right-handed Michael Young was simply atrocious against righties in 2012, hitting 277/312/370 with a wOBA of .280. That’s coming off of a 2011 in which he hit 330/373/465 against righties with a wOBA of .363.
Bottom line is that Michael Young has been way better at hitting righties (and walking against them) over his career than he was in 2012, as evidenced by his career 297/341/435 line and .340 wOBA against righties. And it’s not like he’s been undergoing a consistent and gradual decline against right-handed pitching. His drop from 2011 to 2012 against righties was dramatic. If he doesn’t improve against righties relative to his 2012 numbers, his career, at least as an everyday player, is just about over. But there’s also reason to believe that his chances of bouncing back against righties in 2013 are good.
Todd Zolecki takes a guess at the batting order for the Phillies here. It goes:
- Rollins (SS)
- M Young (3B)
- Utley (2B)
- Howard (1B)
- D Young (RF)
- Brown/Ruf/Mayberry (LF)
- Kratz (C)
- Revere (CF)
The Phillies are really going to have to start Delmon Young in right field before I’m willing to believe they think he should be playng there. I think Michael Young will hit lower than that and the left-handed Revere will hit higher, at least against right-handed pitching — he stole 40 bases last year and I don’t think the Phillies want him doing that in front of the pitcher in 2013.
If Domonic Brown is healthy on Opening Day and not in the starting lineup against a righty, I will be very surprised.
Here’s my guess for Opening Day, in which the Phils seem likely to face righty Tim Hudson:
- Rollins (SS)
- Revere (CF)
- Utley (2B)
- M Young (3B)
- Howard (1B)
- D Young (LF)
- Brown (RF)
- Kratz (C)
Biggest thing there is that Utley and Howard and not hitting 3/4 in the order. Howard is fifth with the righty Michael Young splitting the lefties Utley and Howard. Would the Phillies really hit Ryan Howard fifth? Against a righty? On Opening Day? I think they should. If they don’t on Opening Day, I think they will before long. When’s the last time Howard started a game hitting anywhere but cleanup in the order? June 29, 2008 against the Rangers in a DH game. Utley third, Burrell fourth, Howard fifth and Dobbs the DH sixth. Burrell breaking up the lefties Utley and Howard. Howard hit fifth in four games in ’08, all DH games — 6/25, 6/27, 6/28 and 6/29.
They’re all DH games for the Phillies in 2013 given they’re an NL team with three of them. Howard is just about a lock to be awful defensively. Both of the Youngs started more games at DH in 2012 than any other position.
Michael Young hitting cleanup against a righty to break up Utley and Howard isn’t exactly ideal, given that he’s right-handed and hit 257/291/352 against right-handed pitching in 2012.
I could easily see another catcher, like Quintero, starting instead of Kratz. I think it makes sense to hit Brown ahead of Young against a righty, but would guess that the Phillies do it the other way around. It seems to me like Revere will likely hit at the bottom of the lineup against left-handed pitching. I’d guess he hits higher against righties.
January 31st, 2013 on 1:44 pm
That lineup would’ve been pretty awesome about 5 years ago.
As you know from most of my posts, I’m usually fairly optimistic about the Phils chances. But, the more I think about it, the only chance they really have is to be elite in starting pitching, decent to good in the bullpen, and about average in hitting. I just don’t know how likely it is that all three of those things will happen at once.
January 31st, 2013 on 1:45 pm
Oh…forgot to mention…the pitchers better strike everybody out because I’m not sure who is going to catch the ball if it’s hit.
January 31st, 2013 on 2:07 pm
I think there’s a chance that Michael Young can be near average defensively at third — by that I mean goes back to ’09 to ’11 form, which was bad but not terrible. I don’t think Delmon will be near average, but I do think he could be better defensively in the past.
I think there’s a good chance that both Youngs will be better offensively with the bat in 2013 than they were in 2012.
Hopefully a lot better.
Still, it seems like a lot of things need to go right for the Phillies to hang with the Braves and Nats.
I think the biggest things are still around Halladay and Howard.
January 31st, 2013 on 2:12 pm
I agree on Howard and Halladay. Unfortunately I don’t see much hope at all for Howard. He’s been steadily declining for a long time. Last year was a drastic decline, which I attribute to the injury. But, the years of decline before that don’t give me a ton of hope.
January 31st, 2013 on 2:24 pm
I think there’s no chance that Howard isn’t terrible defensively. I think it is possible that he could make enough offense to be a productive player. 10 DH games for the Phils this year — it would help Howard’s chances of being a productive player overall for the year to get him off the field and let him DH those games. Not being terrible on the bases would help as well.
February 1st, 2013 on 9:07 am
Doc and Howard. One could fairly argue that they are the ball game. Amaro could have been brilliant this offseason and it would be for naught without those two guys being those two guys.
The Nats will be hard to beat. There’s a chance that the Braves will be more easily had. I think they will miss Chipper at third and Prado wherever they would choose to play him. I think they will really miss Prado. He’s just a gamer. Not sure their new out fielding brothers are just slightly underachievers, as good as they are. That just might hurt the Braves. And help us.
Assuming Doc and Howard. In fact, I wonder if Doc isn’t the single most important player in the NL East this year.
February 1st, 2013 on 10:26 am
I agree about Halladay and Howard. I don’t think there’s anyone more important for the Phillies in 2013 than Halladay. I think Howard is important, but doesn’t have the same chance to impact the team that Halladay does.
I think the Braves are pretty good. Chris Johnson surely isn’t the answer for them at third. But they’re looking pretty strong to me. I think we’ll see more predictions about the NL East in the coming weeks. I’d guess most of them have the Phillies third.