Delmon Young

Its tough to get a read on a guy that you’ve only seen four times in person. However, when I saw Delmon Young play in Charleston, South Carolina during the 2004 season, I was very impressed.

The bar is normally set extremely high when you watch a first overall pick, and sometimes the expectations are set too high, which causes you come away disappointed. That wasn’t the case with Delmon Young.

In 2004, I was calling games for the Charleston Alley Cats, and they had the best pitching staff in the South Atlantic League. Delmon Young went yard five times in the four game set against the Alley Cats and four of those bombs went the opposite way with the wind blowing in. Not only was the wind blowing in, the wind probably could have knocked me over.

The homeruns told me just how much power he really had. When he was in the field, it was easy to see that he was built for right field. He’s got that natural big athletic build of a right fielder, and an absolute cannon of an arm. I don’t think he should play anywhere else.

Not only was Young a guy that turned heads in the stands, he was so incredibly gifted, that he practically had the Alley Cats in awe. That might sound a bit cliché but I’m being 1000000% serious when I say that.

I’ll never forget the third game of that series. He hit two bombs in that game, and threw out two people in right field. He nailed one guy at third base, and the other at the plate. The final score was 4-3, so obviously, he was a HUGE factor. The Alley Cats manager that year, Kenny Joyce was FURIOUS after the game.

Kenny had managed against Delmon Young in the All-Star Game that year, so he knew how great Young really was. On the bus after the game, Kenny was as mad as I’ve ever seen him. He got on the bus and minus SEVERAL expletives, he said “If you want to be like their right fielder, then play like him, don’t play in awe of him.”

It was an incredible quote at an emotional moment from one of my favorites in this game. Perhaps what was most impressive about that whole scenario, was that Delmon Young was just 18 years old at the time, and he was EXTREMELY dominant.

Young obviously has painted a foggy picture for most casual fans, and even the die-hards who have yet to see him. His bat throwing incidents and the rumors of his discontent with the D-Rays system that have gone public certainly won’t help his image at all, at least until people get to see him, and see just how great he really is.

His numbers have been very consistent since he started playing pro ball. He spent not quite three seasons in the minor leagues, but in that time he tallied 59 bombs, 273 RBI, 448 hits over 353 games, and had a .317 average.

Though his time in the majors last year was brief, he still did fairly well, hitting .317 with three homers, 40 hits, and nine doubles over 30 games. That’s one heck of a start for a guy that is only 21 years old, and wont be 22 until September.

Dmitri Young, Delmon’s older brother has had a solid major league career. He’s been nothing too special, but he’s been good enough to stick in the majors for a little while. Delmon is going to be different, Delmon will be a guy that you hear about, and see smiling at all star games for years to come.

Bull's Prospect Pulse

With the season just a little less than two weeks away, I figured it was time for me to put up a list of the finest prospects that I’ve seen in my short stint as a radio announcer in the minor leagues.

I don’t know how many I’ll get to, and for the time being, they’ll be in no particular order. Perhaps that will be a post to look forward to in the summer time when I’m able to rank the best I’ve seen so far.

I’ll start doing one at a time, and if I feel adventurous, I’ll throw two into the same post.

Lets get started with a gentleman that very few people outside the minor league circuit, and a few die-hards have ever heard of. I’d like to tell you about Hunter Pence. Last summer, the Houston Astro’s were in search of some offensive firepower, and before they took Carlos Lee off Milwaukee’s hands, they made a VERY strong run at Miguel Tejada.

The deal involved mostly minor leaguers, and the kicker in the deal for the Orioles, was Astros’ outfielder Hunter Pence. Now I know you are asking “how can you get so excited about a guy who hasn’t even played past the AA level?”

Trust me, there is a reason this guy was the kicker in a deal that would have given Houston one of the best offensive shortstops in the game. Pence is a monster at 6’4’’, he’s listed at 210, but I’d say he’s closer to 225 lbs (unless he’s lost weight since I last saw him). He also moves EXTREMELY well in the outfield.

He’s not your typical big outfielder with speed. Most of those guys are all or nothing, big stolen base/homerun threats and very little of anything else. Pence has pretty darn good range in center field, but probably projects better as a corner outfielder. He’s arm is pretty strong, though I have seen stronger, which is why I think his future is in left field.

Offensively, his numbers are pretty impressive, but you have to base your evaluation on a prospect on more than numbers. However, its very hard for me to look past two things here; first, Pence hit 28 bombs last year at AA Corpus Christi, (3rd in the league) and knocked in 95 runs (5th in the league).

His batting stance is much like that of Jose Cansaeco’s, his approach is much like Cansaeco’s, and his game rivals that of the author/ex-steroid user.

Looking at his 2005 numbers impressed me more, and I saw him close to a dozen times that year. He was so impressive during the 2005 season that Houston sent their assistant general managers down to see him several times. He hit some bombs against the WV Power in 2005 that haven’t landed yet.

He was the kind of guy that made EVERYONE in the ballpark stop what they were doing when he took batting practice. He hit a homerun every 8.6 at bats in the South Atlantic League for the first half of the season. He played 80 games in the Sally League and hit 25 bombs, VERY impressive. Had he played there the whole year, he would have broken the league record.

Baseball America ranks him as the best prospect in the Astro’s system, and last year they ranked him 6th best in their system. What often motivates a man, is doubt from others that he’ll ever make a significant impact. Scouts said he’d have a lot of trouble at the higher levels because they’d jam him, bust him in and make him change his approach.

They also said he’d had success early on in his career because he was old for the leagues he was playing in, and a higher level of competition would make his numbers drop. In 2006 he put those doubters in their place with a great year at Double A Corpus Christi. He was in the top five in eight major categories, and if you can do that at the Double A level, then I’d say you’ve proven your point against a greater level of competition.

This season is obviously huge for him. I think one of two things will happen; he’ll either make it to the big leagues as a September call up and put himself in a position to play in Houston on a permanent basis in 2008, or he’ll end up getting traded so that Houston can bring in an extra arm to try and make that big run in the 2nd half like they always do.

Either way, you’ll hear his name A LOT on SportsCenter in a couple of years.