Thoughts on Michael Young

Thoughts on Michael Young

I forgot that we already did a prospect retro for Michael Young, which you can find by clicking here. That explains the basic history of his career and relates it to how he was viewed as a prospect. That takes the wind out of most of what I was going to write about today.

Young's final 2005 statistics were excellent across the board: .331/.385/.513, 40 doubles, 24 homers. He hit .331/.386/.527 at home, and .330/.384/.500 on the road, so this wasn't the case of a guy who did all of his damage in a friendly home park. As we noted in the prospect retro, Young showed a broad range of skills in the minors, and has continued to improve in the majors.

The question now is, how long can he keep this up?

First of all, it's possible that Young hasn't even topped out yet. His career OPS marks:

2001. .700
      
2002. .690
      
2003. .785
      
2004. .836
      
2005. .898

Draw it on a graph and you'll see what I mean. . .his production hasn't plateaued yet.

Can Young continue to improve? Will he stabilize at this level of production? When will he start to fade?

I saw Young play just once this year, and I'd be very interested in the observations and thoughts of those who saw him play more often. Please share.