The Other Chris Young

After the 2005 season, Javier Vazquez demanded a trade out of Arizona. Vazquez wanted to be closer to his family, who lived on the east coast. The Diamondbacks obliged, as they were required to do, and dealt Vazquez to the White Sox in exchange for Orlando Hernandez, Luiz Vizcaino, and minor leaguer Chris Young.

Why should you care? You should care because Chris Young is about to become a superstar.

It’s good to be a baseball player named Chris Young. The other Chris Young (well, the first, the one most people have heard of) is a 6-foot-10 pitcher for the San Diego Padres, who excelled in PetCo Park, unsurprisingly, due to his solid K/BB ratio and his tendency to give up fly balls, which often became outs due to the Padres’ outfield defense, and rarely became homers, due to the Padres’ outfield dimensions. Most people know of Christopher Ryan Young, the pitcher.

However, far fewer people know of Christopher Brandon Young, the outfielder. This Chris Young, set to open the 2007 season as the Diamondbacks’ center fielder, has largely flown under the radar, even among people who closely follow prospects. In order to understand why I’m so high on him for this season and beyond, let’s examine Young’s track record so far.

Young, who will be 23 during the 2007 season, was drafted by the White Sox in the 16^th round of the 2001 draft. He played rookie ball in 2002 and 2003, showing some power and some speed---statistics at such a low level are basically irrelevant. In 2004 he moved up to low-A ball at Kannapolis, posting a line of .262/.362/.505 in 465 at-bats. Young managed 24 homers, 31 doubles, and had 31 steals (in 40 attempts). Young also received excellent ratings in center field---Baseball Prospects rated his CF defense as a +7 for the season. On the down side, Young struck out 145 times---meaning that 43% of the outs he made were strikeouts, an astronomically high number, especially considering he was facing rather unpolished pitchers. However, Young’s combination of speed, power, patience, and defense still made him an intriguing prospect; after all, he was only 20 years old.

There is one interesting element to add to Young’s season at Kannapolis. Young hit 24 homers as a 20-year-old, which is excellent (even with his high strikeout totals). However, according to three-year weighted minor league park factors (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/oracle/discussion/34611/), Kannapolis was a tough park to hit home runs in: it deflated homers by 24%---the same amount that PetCo Park deflated homers (much to the benefit of Pitcher Chris Young). Basically, had Young played in a neutral park (let alone a park which favored hitters), he could have expected to hit 24% more homers at home, without doing anything differently.

In 2004, the White Sox bumped Young all the way to AA, bypassing high-A ball. Young spent the season with Birmingham, posting a line of .277/.377/.545 in 466 at-bats as a 21-year-old. Young amassed 26 homers, 41 doubles, 32 steals (in 38 attempts), walked four more times than he had in 2003, and struck out 16 less (although Ks still accounted for 38% of his outs). In other words, after a very solid season a Low-A ball in 2003, Young skipped a level, was extremely young for his age, and improved his OBP, SLG, homers, doubles, steals, stolen-base efficiency, walks, and struck out less.

All of this sounds pretty good. Let’s incorporate one additional factor: yes, in 2003 Kannapolis was a tough home ballpark to play in. However, in 2004 Birmingham made Kannapolis look like Coors Field. Birmingham’s home ballpark depressed home runs by a whopping 45%. It’s almost twice as hard to hit a home run in Birmingham’s park than it is in Kannapolis’s home park.

And yet Young, at only 21 years of age, managed 26 homers (in only 126 games). Extended to a full 162-game season of 600 at-bats, that amounts to a total of 33 homers, despite playing half of his games in a park where homers are depressed by 45%.

Had Young played 162 games in a neutral ballpark in 2004 and hit homers at the same pace, he would have amassed over 40 homers, in addition to over 40 steals and excellent patience at the plate.

Yes, Young did not play 162 games, but the idea is that while his AA season was good on the surface, when you consider the circumstances---bypassing High-A ball, being only 21 years old, and playing in such a tough ballpark---it’s an incredible season.

Credit Arizona GM Josh Byrnes with landing such a valuable player in exchange for Vazquez, despite having no choice but to trade Vazquez (additionally, the White Sox paid his entire salary).

In his first season with Arizona, Young suffered a broken wrist in spring training, delaying his start to the season. Once he recovered, Young was sent to AAA Tucson. He played in 100 games for the Sidewinders, totaling 402 at-bats. There was some concern that Young’s injury would have a lingering effect on his bat-speed and thus his power. It’s possible that the injury did affect him, but Young nonetheless once again put up a stellar line of .276/.363/.532 as a 22-year old. He hit 21 homers, 32 doubles, and had 17 steals (in 22 attempts). What’s most interesting about Young’s 2006 season was that he basically eliminated his one weakness: strikeouts.

After striking out 145 and 129 times in the previous two seasons, Young struck out only 72 times in 2006, despite facing AAA pitching. What’s especially impressive is that the decrease in strikeouts did not have any effect on his patience (he still walked 51 times) or his power (57 extra-base hits). Considering that Tucson’s home park is neutral for homers and Young managed “only” 21, it’s possible that his wrist injury was indeed bothering him, and yet he still managed an 895 OPS as a 22-year-old at AAA.

Young was then promoted to the majors and appeared in 29 games, totaling 70 at-bats. He posted a modest line of .243/.308/.386, hitting 2 homers and stealing 2 bases (in 3 attempts). He walked six times (walks accounted for 8% of his plate appearances at the ML level, versus 11% at AAA, 13% at AA, and 12% at A). However, he struck out only 12 times (Ks accounted for only 23% of his outs at the ML level, versus 24% at AAA, 38% at AA and 43% at A).

Young’s defense was also very solid at AAA and earned good reviews at the major league level, allowing him to all-but-secure the CF job in 2007.

Chris Young (the hitter) has put up excellent raw numbers in every season in the minor leagues. His numbers look even better when you factor in that 1) he’s always been young for his league; 2) he’s played in two very tough home parks on hitters; and 3) he’s consistently improved his one weakness, strikeouts, without sacrificing his patience or power.

So what can we expect from Young in 2007 and beyond? Well, PECOTA was high on Young even before the 2006 season---it projected an 852 OPS, 25 homers, and 19 steals for 2007. I imagine the projection will only improve considering how well Young handled AAA pitchers in 2006 (incidentally, the pre-2006 PECOTA had Young’s OPS rising to 924 with 30 homers by 2010). ZIPS’s 2007 projection for Young is an 861 OPS with 29 homers and 15 steals.

Last season, only five major league center fielders managed an OPS of at least 850 (one of them, Gary Matthews Jr., is highly unlikely to match this in 2007). Young’s career OPS in the minors is 859. Furthermore, Young (for a change) will be playing in one of the best hitter’s parks in all of baseball: from 2003-2005, Arizona’s park increased homers and doubles by 14% each; in 2006 it increased homers by 34% and doubles by 10%. Presumably he will also be fully recovered from any lingering ailments related to his wrist injury.

Granted, the major leagues are unlike the minor leagues---Young will be facing the best pitchers day in and day out. However, minor league numbers usually translate very well into the majors, especially for a young player with excellent tools. Chris Young is everything a smart 21^st-century baseball team could ask a prospect to be, and has as good of a chance as anyone in the game to be a legitimate superstar, perhaps as soon as 2007. Soon, that tall pitcher in San Diego will be the other Chris Young.