Chris Young - Update
	written by: Chris Neault 07/07/2008

It is no secret that San Diego ace Chris Young is a favorite of Fantasy Phenoms, so we are all anxiously awaiting his return to the hill, hoping that he can right our collective fantasy teams’ rotations in the second half. As you well know by now, Young is currently on the DL, recovering from a multi-trauma facial injury sustained at the hands (bat) of an Albert Pujols line drive back in late-May. At the time, I had contributed a brief article on the injury to Fantasy Phenoms.

After allowing his skull fracture to heal, he underwent surgery on June 30 to repair a deviated septum in his nose. Prior to the surgery, he had been performing strengthening exercises for his upper body so that he could maintain some strength and so that he could resume throwing more quickly following surgery. The injuries he sustained were not going to affect his pitching so much as it was going to affect his breathing – i.e. he was unable to breathe normally with his structurally-altered nasal septum hindering the air flow through the nose.

Young was able to throw a 45-pitch simulated game on the Saturday prior to his surgery without a screen in front of him - a huge hurdle, mentally - and he said that he felt great. Said Young, about the possibility of being struck by a batted ball, "Not one time did that enter my mind. And not one time did I think about the ball coming back at me." Even more importantly, his pitching arm felt good.

Now that he has had successful surgery, he is expected to resume throwing this week, perhaps as soon as Monday, July 7. He is expected to go on a short rehab assignment shortly, and it will probably last somewhere between one and three starts. This will likely put his return sometime in the latter part of July. Initially, he might struggle with control of his off-speed pitches, and might not last long into games, but this should improve over time.

Perhaps more concerning to me is not how he will recover from this injury – because he surely will – but, rather, the downward trend of production he was showing even prior to the injury sending him to the DL. I wanted to take a look at this from a statistical view to demonstrate his relative ineffectiveness when compared to the past two seasons and his career averages.

Decreased Production in 2008

Aside from the significant facial injuries, Young has had a fairly turbulent start to his 2008 season from a statistical and production standpoint. Let’s take a deeper look at the numbers:

In 54.0 innings this season, he has notched 51 strikeouts and a 4-4 record to go along with an un-Young-like 4.50 ERA and 1.48 WHIP. On the bright side, he has maintained a healthy strikeout rate of 8.50 K/9.

The really concerning parts of his stats (thank you to Fangraphs) are the increased walk rates, the fact that he has become more hittable, and that the balls put in play are being hit harder. For example:

BB/9 K/BB BAA BABIP LD%

Obviously, something has to have changed for his numbers to turn south so quickly. He has had over a 10% increase in his line drive percentage compared to last season, and opponents are hitting 52 points higher against him. In addition, his walks per nine ratio is in the “poor” category – averaging 1.25 more walks per game compared to ‘07.

While fantasy owners are drooling over the anticipated return date of Chris Young to their active lineups, we must temper our expectations somewhat, as Chris Young version 2008 does appear to be dealing with a problem/alteration with/of mechanics, a developing injury, or both. It could just be a matter of changing his approach altogether – there is no real way to tell. All we can say for sure is that statistically speaking, he is a different pitcher thus far in 2008. I am in the process of examining the Pitch f/x data more closely for an article at The Hardball Times (should be published by Thursday) to see if there is any relationship between his decreased production and the Pitch f/x data. As an owner of Chris Young in two of my four leagues, I am cautiously hoping for a second half turnaround of monster proportions, but am hedging my bets.

Questions or comments? cneault23@yahoo.com