October 8th, 2011 at 1:32 PM ^
October 8th, 2011 at 1:34 PM ^
fixed
October 8th, 2011 at 2:46 PM ^
Not sure, but he won't be in the rineup.
October 8th, 2011 at 1:36 PM ^
when I saw yesterday that Danny Worth was on a plane to Texas.
October 8th, 2011 at 1:39 PM ^
Danny Worth gets his spot and Raburn will start instead of Young.
LINK:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs/2011/story/_/id/7075050/2011-alcs-detro…
October 8th, 2011 at 1:47 PM ^
with the tiger
October 8th, 2011 at 1:48 PM ^
That's a big blow. Terrible luck. Hopefully he'll recover enough to play in the World Series -- if they get that far. Minus Young, their chances just decreased.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:19 PM ^
he has a .302 OBP on the season. Calling it a "big blow" seems like an overstatement.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:22 PM ^
He has been hot, so it does hurt. However, it is certainly no reason not to pick the tiggers in 6.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:25 PM ^
is just our need to turn random variation into a narrative.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:41 PM ^
I'm a big proponent of using careful empirical work to overturn conventional wisdom. But I'd need to see some pretty, pretty careful studies to convince me that players don't go through stretches where they play better or worse than some baseline performance. Is there really any empirical work that would allow you to claim that Young's Sept/Oct performance is no more relevant than his April/May performance in predicting how he'd perform in the ALCS?
October 8th, 2011 at 3:00 PM ^
most of his numbers haven't changed. He's still striking out and walking at the same rate as he did before, and he's reaching base at the same rate as well. The only difference is his power. He's seen a huge spike in his isolated power, which is like 1.5 times his career rate over the last month. It's possible he's changed something as a hitter, but none of this other peripheral stats have changed, so it's more likely he's just running pretty hot on home runs at the moment. When you're dealing with a 3000 AB career, I don't see a good reason to trust the last month over all of his prior history.
October 8th, 2011 at 3:11 PM ^
I haven't followed Young's stats that closely, so I'll concede that there might be ways to analyze his last month's stats to show that his performance isn't changed much. But, in a discussion of advanced statistics, your last point is not at all the sort of empirical response I was hoping for.
While we're dealing in the realm of common sense, it's very easy for me to imagine why a hitter's performance might fluctuate over various time frames: injuries, mechanical glitches, the waxing and waning of confidence, etc. I can clearly recall going through stretches in high school where, e.g., I did nothing but fist groundballs to the shortstop for a few weeks before realizing that I needed to stop letting my back elbow fly out.
October 8th, 2011 at 3:15 PM ^
is that I would guess Fangraphs or Tangotiger or Baseball Prospectus has done a study of the "hot bat" issue, but I am not aware of any off the top of my head.
October 8th, 2011 at 3:50 PM ^
I admittedly don't know much about advanced stats, but does him changing teams factor into this at all? You mention its possible he's changed something. The change in power does coincide with getting a new hitting coach and manager and new lineup. Is that enough to change the trends you're talking about?
October 8th, 2011 at 4:24 PM ^
You are such a turd about stats.
Young had three home runs in the ALDS. We wouldn't have advanced without him.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:29 PM ^
This is the Postseason not the Season. In the ALDS Young led the team in SLG and OPS.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:29 PM ^
His regular season stats are 100 times more meaningful.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:36 PM ^
I don't think so. After Cabrera and Martinez there is no Tiger I would rather see at the plate. Leyland has batted Young third for a reason, he is a talented hitter and capable of taking advantage of the opportunities batting in front of Cabrera afforded him.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:47 PM ^
he was the #1 overall pick for a reason.
He also has a career .288/..321/.428 line, and has only taken 125 walks in almost 2800 at bats.
Having him healthy is better than not having him healthy. But I think saying it's a big blow because he had a good ALDS is reading too much into a few games.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:46 PM ^
I think Yankee fans would strongly disagree with this statement re A-rod
October 8th, 2011 at 2:51 PM ^
has a career .884 OPS in the postseason with 13 home runs in 16 series. It's just not true that he's been bad in the postseason. And Yankee fans are idiots.
October 8th, 2011 at 3:02 PM ^
Arod sucked in the ALDS and had little to no chance against Valverde. Offensively Arod was a liability in the 2011 ALDS regardless of what his historical OPS was.
October 8th, 2011 at 3:04 PM ^
The question is whether the fact that he was bad in the ALDS means anything other than "he was bad in the ALDS."
Everyone, even great hitters (which A-Rod has been but probably isn't anymore) has bad 5 or 7 game stretches, and drawing lessons or conclusions from a single series is putting way too much faith in small samples.
October 8th, 2011 at 3:15 PM ^
The question for me is what relavance Arod historical OPS has when he is a shadow of the player who put up those stats
Had the Yankees advanced past the Tigers, I would give more credence to his struggles against the Tigers than a monster post season he had with the Mariners in1997
October 8th, 2011 at 4:28 PM ^
The majority of that is from 2009, other than that he's a choker.
October 8th, 2011 at 4:58 PM ^
career regular season wRC+ is 148. For the postseason it's still a very above average 132. Don't tell that to Yankees fans.
October 8th, 2011 at 1:55 PM ^
What exactly happened? Just sounded like an abdominal strain or something when he talked about it post game.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:02 PM ^
Strained oblique (abdominal) muscle. Pesky injury, especially if your job is to swing a bat.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:08 PM ^
Well that sucks but certainly not insurmountable. Raeburn and Dirks can fill in capably.
On a positive note: An outfield of Young, Jackson and Boesch for 2012 is pretty exciting
October 8th, 2011 at 2:44 PM ^
I think we go after J. Reyes and/or Hanley R. this offseason too and push Peralta over to third. We would finally have the leadoff man that we have been lacking.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:49 PM ^
I don't see a reason to go get a SS when we already have a good one and a promising young 3B in the minors. Pitching pitching and more pitching. Offense hasn't been the Tigers problem this year and shouldn't be an issue next season either.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:53 PM ^
Would love to see that, but I honestly don't think they make a run at either of them. I'm guessing the one big offseason pick up will be a starting pitcher. Preferrably a left handed starter that can break up the string of righties. I'g going to guess they go with Inge again and also wouldn't be surprised to see them bring back Betemit.
I'd also be surprised to see them resign Magglio. Young in LF, Jackson in CF, Boesch in RF going forward with Dirks being that 4th OF and Kelly and Raburn having the ability to play there in a pinch.
October 8th, 2011 at 3:27 PM ^
Well this sucks, we wouldn't be in the ALCS without him
October 8th, 2011 at 4:12 PM ^
Damn, thats bad news.