Chris Young is certainly making a name for himself this October. He had three hits and three walks in 14 plate appearances against the Cubs in the NLDS, and two of those hits left the yard. His homer today came on the first pitch of the ballgame.
Of course, the better Young does, the more Kenny Williams will have to hear about it. Phil Rogers penned
the first "How do you like him now?" column of the fall a couple days ago, and one can only figure more will be on the way if Young maintains his current level of performance.
The problem with these columns is that it's extremely difficult to assess this trade because of the greater-than-normal amount of variables, such as:
Javier Vazquez is pretty good, himself.Vazquez didn't impress anybody in 2006, but as the Sox slid down the standings in the second half, Vazquez stepped up his game. He had
the second-best ERA on the staff during the last two months of the season, and struck out 10 or more hitters in
five of those 12 starts.
He returned to glory in 2007, leading the staff in wins (15), innings (216 2/3), strikeouts (213) and WHIP (1.14), while finishing second in ERA (3.74) to Mark Buehrle.
Young is a great talent, but Vazquez isn't easy to replace, either. He'll be well worth his three-year, $34.5 million extension if he doesn't lose what he's found. Talentwise, there isn't a clear winner assessing this trade as one-on-one.
Young's numbers are pretty crazy.Good: Young had 32 homers.
Bad: He drove in only 68 runs,
the third-lowest total for anybody who hit 32 or more home runs in the same year.
Good: He stole 27 bases in 33 attempts.
Bad: He sported a .295 OBP, only five points higher than Brian Anderson's during his miserable 2006.
The RBI can be explained partially because he's not only hitting leadoff, but doing so in the National League, where there's usually an automatic out in front of him. But the .186 average with runners in scoring position doesn't help, either.
The Sox are pretty bad at developing hitters.Young's 141 strikeouts indicates there are some holes in his swing. Anderson has holes, Josh Fields has holes. Ryan Sweeney has the best plate coverage of the bunch, yet inside fastballs render him useless.
Where they differ, however, is in work environments. Young is honing his craft in an organization that is almost entirely homegrown, with one of the youngest lineups in the league. Sox prospects have to earn respect from Ozzie Guillen, who prefers veterans, and Greg Walker, whose job seems to be defending his hitters instead of addressing their weaknesses.
Young's speed and power would give him a natural edge over Anderson and Sweeney, but it's impossible to figure out how much better he would have been in a Sox uniform. As of this date, nobody from his generation of Sox prospects have come close to meeting expectations.
This offseason will do a lot to clear the air about who really came out ahead of this trade. At the time, I figured Vazquez would leave the Sox a top position prospect short for a year, after which they could trade one of Freddy Garcia, Jose Contreras or Jon Garland for a highly touted outfielder.
That hasn't happened (although Gio Gonzalez has a future somewhere), and if Kenny Williams throws out another $10 million/year contract at Aaron Rowand or Torii Hunter, that's when the trade will truly leave the Sox in the lurch. The question won't be "Young or Vazquez?" but rather "Young, Brandon McCarthy and $20 million to address other holes?"
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Aside: Note in that Rogers column that Razor Shines pushed for keeping Chris Young over Brian Anderson when Williams negotiated that trade. Maybe that's
another reason why he's out of a job -- Ozzie and Kenny were sick of hearing "I told you so."