RaysBB.com

Rewind one year. Remember the laughing Rays fans at how the Twins got robbed, fleeced, and embarrassed in the Delmon Young trade? Remember the Twins rumors circling that Delmon Young was on the trade block? Remember the fluke breakout performance of Jason Bartlett which made the Young trade even sweeter than originally expected?

Now fast forward one year. Delmon Young.... .330/.363/.539... 13 HR, 76 RBI.

I know what some of you are thinking. Unsustainable. Reversion to the mean.

Guess what? You could be wrong. This is exactly the kind of hitter that Young profiled as when he was a 19 year old in AA. High batting average, line drive power, and RBI machine.

Then Durham happened. Then Elijah Dukes happened. Then the media happened. Then we lost the proclaimed best prospect in baseball and future of the franchise.

But what really changed? Delmon still had the huge line drive power even in his time with the Devil Rays. I can't help but remember the few laser beam home runs that were McGwire-esque and the many gap doubles. Delmon still had the contact hitting approach at the plate. Perhaps he had too much of a contact approach early in his professional career as he jumped on every pitch and failed to wait for the right pitches. But he still was a .290-.300 hitter despite that approach as a 20/21 year old.

What did we expect out of him? He was billed as a contact hitting RBI machine with huge power potential. The Rays got 13 HR, 38 doubles, and 93 RBI from a 21 year old rookie. Looking back, this was in line with where expectations SHOULD have been.

What was missing from his game? Nothing more than consistency, patience at the plate, and maturity as a person.

After the trade, we all know what happened for the Rays. Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett helped lead the Rays to the World Series and the best season in franchise history. Everyone proclaimed the trade a huge win for the Rays and the words "robbed" and "fleeced" came out of the woodworks. Delmon Young wasn't even an All-Star, not even the best outfielder on the Twins roster, and hadn't lived up to the lofty expectations that prospect watchers placed on him.

Look a bit deeper and you'll see improvement in every area of his game aside from power. He had a higher walk rate, lower strikeout rate, and a slightly higher batting average. The problem was that he had suddenly become a groundball contact hitter (1.22 GB/FB in 2008 vs. 0.90 in 2007).

This power problem lingered into 2009 along with a lack of managerial support and suddenly Delmon collapsed into a career threatening slump. He went into the All-Star break with a line of .266/.292/.344 and a spot on the bench as the 4th outfielder. To make matters worse for the Twins, Jason Bartlett was an All-Star sporting a .930 OPS and Matt Garza had a sub-4 ERA. His performance would normally be considered a slump, but the word "bust" was suddenly thrown around because of the obviously one-sided nature of the trade. The trade defined Delmon more than his performance. And then when everyone had written him off and stopped caring.... the breakout began.

Delmon's 2nd half splits last year: .300/.322/.502. The power was back.

And now this year he's a legitimate MVP candidate. I'm not saying he'll win or even finish 2nd, but he's clearly a candidate.

I don't want to turn this into a "Win/Loss" debate about the trade because I think (and thought even last year) that both sides would come out winners from this trade. Having said that, what are your thoughts on this breakout season and do you think it is a sign of things to come?

Definitely a strong year. When he hits for power like that, his walk rate doesn't matter so much. But he'll need to do it again for it to be particularly meaningful, and given how really really bad he was in 2009, this year remains an outlier. For now.

I think he's definitely at a new level of performance, not a total fluke, though I'd be wary of assuming he'll continue to hit THIS well in the future. The problem he has though is that he's a lousy defender who adds nothing on the basepaths and that limits his value. Left field isn't a real big deal defensively, it's not like they need to move him from there to somewhere easier, but it does negate some of what he does offensively. To compare to a familiar player, I'd take every full season of Crawford's career except 2003 and maybe 2008 over what Young is doing this year despite Young having a 140 OPS+. Young is a one-dimensional player and so he basically has to hit really well to be a significant asset to his team. I think calling him an MVP candidate is a serious stretch, I'd take a lot of players including at least two each from the Twins and Rays over him for that honor. Hell, I don't know enough about the calculations involved in the WAR numbers on Baseball-reference and Fangraphs to say how accurate they are but both of them have Ben Zobrist as being a decent amount more valuable than Young this year.

I'm with Jim on this. He was never as bad as he was when he first got to the Twins but the guy has hit .500 for the last month with a babip of about.450. Obviously that's unsustainable for anyone however the question is how far off does he fall. He is still not walking and that should be a concern.

Delmon never walked but hit .300 with power before. I don't think the lack of walks should ever be a 'concern' as he's shown he can produce without them. Obviously it's not great but I think that he could be a .275 | 25 HR | 80 RBI guy down the line, nothing much better.

They're a definite concern, since while he may have hit with power "before", he's spent a lot more time not hitting with power than he has hitting with power. That then left them with a singles hitter with a bad OBP. If he's now going to realise a consistent power stroke, that won't matter. But it sure as hell used to, as recently as last season.

Good analysis, yAk.

Delmon was super young when he was traded. Garza is what, 3 years older, and Bartlett like 7? Really, we should have all realized that we were going for immediate improvement with Bartlett and taking a shot at turning around Garza's career, which the Twins were probably hesitant to try after a strain developed in the relationship between the player and the organization.

Delmon was a bit of a project, too, but it takes a guy with talent like that to acquire the talent we got in return. We saw the talent just as the Twins did, and I'm sure Friedman and co. aren't particularly surprised by his production this year.

I think Young's career will be like Upton's, frankly. There are a few things he does as well as anyone in baseball. Contact and throwing for Young and speed in the OF and on the bases for Upton, but they are frustragingly stagnant in a lot of other areas. They each have one full season where they put it all together (assuming Delmon doesn't fall too far off these last couple months) but that doesn't seem like it can be maintained.

We'll see, but I'm going more with fluke, but he'll still be a productive player and can play on some very successful teams in the future.

He's never hit below .280 in his entire professional career. His lowest season AVG was .284 in his worst overall season. Why would he suddenly become a .275 hitter?

The stats don't lie people: he's a legitimate .300 hitter. If he's hitting for gap power (40+ doubles) and even regresses in his HR numbers to 15 HR a year, then he's still going to be a 90+ RBI hitter in the middle of someone's lineup. Delmon Young has and continues to be an RBI machine. If he's hitting 25 HR per year then 100 RBI could be a low end projection.

Even then, I'm taking Matt Garza.

Jay Bradley made a good point on here when the trade happened, basically stating that Delmon's productive years may be a few years off. This is exactly how it worked out. Young was a below average player the past two years, while the Rays got average production from Bartlett and above average production out of Garza. That's a win for the Rays not matter what Young does in the future.



Young is always going to be more prone high RBIs because he doesn't walk much and is a middle of the lineup hitter. That's not a knock, but RBI may not be the best way to judge him.

Besides defense, Delmon's flaw is patience at the plate. He's a hacker and has finally been able to hit for enough power this year to outweigh his approach. It's a fine line since his on base skills are almost entirely dependent on his batting average. Any type of struggle and his stats deflate quickly across the board. Even if he hits .300, his OBP is probably still below average.

It's a concern because it lowers his OBP and thus the pct. of outs he makes and could limit him as a hitter. That doesn't mean he can't be a good hitter but he might not get beyond that.

if any team was going to bring him along to be the solid player he projected as and then some, it was the twins. i wouldn't underestimate their role in getting him to do what BJ upton can't seem to in st. pete: live up to his potential by improving his technique, discipline, and consistency. it's a hallmark of their organization

not saying the rays are lousy at it, but the twins are among the best in the biz at realizing their players' potential

I think that Matt Garza wouldn't be the pitcher he is here if he were still pitching in Minnesota. I like to think we had a hand in turning him into an soon-to-be elite pitcher.

I think we both traded headcases and both seemed to have panned out but the old saying goes pitching over offense.

I won't say what he will be over the long haul, but without question he is the Twins' MVP this year and should be a candidate for league MVP as well. Call it luck, call it whatever you like, but his hitting with RISP this year is simply incredible:

.426/.444/.611 (w 2 outs: .364/.417/.564)

And so he has 82 RBI.

Lastly: "I like to think we had a hand in turning him into an soon-to-be elite pitcher."

Hate to break the news, but the trend is the other direction. ERA by year with the Rays: 3.70, 3.95, 4.11. So you get my point, in 184.2 IP in 08, he allowed 19 HR. So far this year, in 135.2 IP, he's allowed 20 HR. His HR/9 has increased every year: .928, 1.108, 1.331. Heck, he's so not elite that he really isn't distinguishable from Brett Cecil (who, by the way, is 2.5 years younger).