Taking a Historic Look at 2007 Prospect Rankings

You do realize that total zone is just based off the play by play right? It was a metric created to evaluate fielders before they UZR and grids came out. Why on earth would we use that when we have a more advanced and accurate version?

As for being replaced, their are a variety of reasons. The first is the abundance of insane general managers. You have people giving him contracts based on the perceived value of his performance. Ask a GM like Friedman, Anthopoulos, Beane, or Hoyer what they think about his performance and value. Then ask a an old school GM who doesn’t believe in math and therefore rejects WAR as you seem to be doing and you will get a totally different answer. Another is potential. Nick Punto isn’t going to come out and swat 30 homers magically in a season, where as Delmon being a former top prospect, is perceived to have that chance.

Delmon Young is truly an awful player.

I might be opening a can of worms here, but what parts of WAR do you disagree with, with respect to Young?

Young doesn’t get replaced because for all of his warts, he is still a relatively young player (and for most of his career very reasonably priced, hint hint) who has yet to hit his prime, and his pure hitting ability is obvious. It doesn’t play up because of his lack of plate discipline, but in terms of raw talent he’s not THAT far off from being the 70 contact/70 power guy he was once projected to become. If the switch goes on, he clearly has the talent to be a valuable piece somewhere in the middle of the lineup. Of course, the defense is bad, very bad, and it takes a huge chunk of the value that he could offer.

So basically, he’s gotten in large part because of his combination of raw upside and low cost/team control. The second of those is going out the window, he’s probably too expensive for what he offers, unless the Tigers decide it’s just easier to keep him. The first of those becomes less relevant as he gets older without making that major breakthrough.

I think he’s going to hang around for a good while, he’s too good a hitter to sit in the minors. But unless he gets on base more and/or realizes more of his potential, I think his future is as a journeyman. I could see him being one of those types that quality teams love to have around as a situational piece, but who is never quite valuable enough to warrant regular play and/or a contract that lasts more than 2 years.

i don’t understand why there’s so much debate about this

Delmon Young is a below average hitter, below average defender (even you agree with this), playing a non-scarce position (left field). The only thing going for him, is that he has the potential to get better at all of these. You don’t need to delve into the advanced metrics to realize why Young is not a very valuable asset.

Furthermore, I think your understanding of baseball markets is flawed. Guys who make $5 million in the free market are not that difficult to replace. In fact, they probably aren’t league average. League average position players tend to make money in the $8-10 million range, without taking into consideration market overvaluations or undervaluations.