It's a slow baseball night tonight, so I decided to write about another hitter who is absolutely killing roto teams this season-Arizona OFer Chris Young. If my memory serves me correctly, as soon as this article is posted, he will start hitting like Juan Pierre (.400+ AVG this year), as the last few hitters I have written about-David Wright and Russell Martin-have begun to hit themselves out of their slumps after I have written about them.
But, I am not so sure that will happen with Chris Young. You see, Wright and Martin have a clue at the plate, Young does not. He just strikes out way too much, and doesn't take a walk like Wright and Martin.
So far in 2009, Young is hitting .193-.248-.349-.596 in 109 ABs, with 2 HRs and 8 RBIs. He has struck out 33 times and walked 7 times, after K/BB rates of 165/62 in 2008, and 141/43 in 2007. So he is on pace to strike out about 200 times in 2009.
I checked to see if Young is normally a slow starter, and saw that in 2008, he hit 12 HRs in the first two months of the season. But, in 2007, he only hit 6 HRs in the first two months of the season, and went on to hit 32 HRs on the season. Something tells me he won't be duplicating that in 2009, namely the strikeouts.
I am sure roto owners are very frustrated with Young, as he will never hit for even a good AVG. But most owners already knew that, and were looking for a 25-25 season from CY. I watch alot of West Coast games and what I have noticed with Young is that he cannot stay away from the breaking ball low and away.
The other problem for roto owners is that Young isn't stealing bases. He, in a way, is very similar to former top prospect of the Cubs, Corey Patterson. Both have power and speed, and play good defense in CF. But, they both strike out too much, and cannot get on base.
After looking at Patterson's career stats over at Baseball-Reference.com, I think he is exactly who the Diamondbacks have playing in CF.
But their CFer is Chris Young.