Chris Young2Chris Young‘s overall numbers don’t paint a rosy picture. His dropped flyball in the bottom of the 14th inning in Friday night’s 6-5 loss to the Phillies will not endear him to Mets’ faithful either.

Life for Young has not been so great in his first year with the Mets.

A meager .205/.290/.368 slash line has many Mets’ fans down on Young. With Curtis Granderson already a drain when it comes to having a player on the team with weak contact skills in the lineup, the Mets unfortunately have another one in the lineup in Young. You add them together with Ruben Tejada and Travis d’Arnaud, the Mets basically four regulars who are hovering around the Mendoza line.

If you got that many many weak hitters, you’re going to have to make up for it in power. From their pasts, we know that both Granderson and Young are both capable of hitting 20+ home runs a year.

Young, who went deep of Phillies’ starter David Buchanan on Thursday night, has to hit for power if he wants to stay in the lineup and contribute. We all knew this about Young, who came to the Mets in the offseason for a one-year, $7.25 million-dollar deal. Looking back on it now, and with the power of hindsight, maybe the Mets moved too quickly to scoop up Young. You see, a player who was signed for a similar amount ($8 million for one year), Nelson Cruz, has been absolutely killing it, while leading the league in home runs and in second in RBI’s (49). At the time the Mets signed Young, Cruz though was holding out for a lot more money and years and there was no telling where the market was heading in November. Safe to say, the Orioles got themselves a bargain.

There is no use in crying over spilled milk, though. You have to move on and hope that Young can hit for some semblance of power, or else his job-regardless of the contract he was signed to-will be in jeopardy.

Young is probably lucky that his other namesake, Eric Young Jr. is on the disabled list. If Young Jr. was around, Chris Young would be skating on thin ice for extended playing time. It seems that Juan Lagares is back to regular playing time and Granderson, short of an epic disaster, will continue to be trotted out every day.

As it is, Young is losing time to Bobby Abreu, who go the start in right on Friday night in Philadelphia, while Granderson shifted to left field.

Simply put, Young has to get his power stroke going. He has hit as many as 32 in one year (2007) and has averaged 20.2 home runs a year ever since that breakout year. Power and perhaps a good bit of speed is Young’s saving grace. It’s time we see it put to good use.

So, if the Mets want to get any investment on Young, it behooves him to get his power stroke going or this may go down as another wasted signing, even if it was only for a year.

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16 comments on “Chris Young: Hit Home Runs and We’ll be Alright

  • Jim OMalley

    I don’t know….that dropped ball was pretty demoralizing….do we have another option; can Puello be brought up? Can Campbell contribute on a regular basis?

    Do we have the ability to make a deal with St. Louis for one of their surplus OFs?

    Or do we just continue to accept Young’s performance.

  • pete

    It behooves him to start hitting some home runs as well! Can’t expect to get any multi-year deal if he continues to struggle. Where is he going to go? The Cubs? Or maybe the Rockies. Otherwise retirement sounds like a good opportunity.

  • Metsense

    The signing of Chris Young for 7.25M was done because the FO didn’t think Lagares would pull his weight in the lineup and EY Jr, because of his speed, would be a better offensive option. The FO projected an OF of EY, CY, and a free agent RF which turned out to be Granderson. The fact that the 7.25 was a big chunk of the budget (many thought the Mets were going to increase their budget in 2014) made this a risky signing. Aoki via trade, or Dejesus a free agent were cheaper options and better OBP guys which was believed to be the philosophy of the front office. The malarky that the Mets needed someone capable of playing CF for Lagares is not true because EY could have played CF and he was on the roster. The FO spent 7.25M on a reclamation project as insurance for Lagares but did nothing at the SS position the other hole in the 2013 offensive lineup.
    Going into the season, Lagares had more speed, more power and was an elite fielder. Tejada was none of those and coming off an horrendous season. If you had limited budget to spend, would you have spent it on a SS insurance or CF insurance? Sandy , like Chris Young, dropped the ball on this one.

    • Jerry Grote

      winnah winnah chicken dinnah Metsense.

      If we continued to spend, and acquired a C and a SS, as well as a real bullpen solution instead of “bridges”, then we’ve got answers. But instead of solving three or four positions, we got two OFers and no SS. And now we still don’t have a solid OF, nor a SS, nor a solution at C.

      I mean, honestly, what sort of knucklehead comes up with *that* as an off season strategy?

    • Jerry Grote

      And what irritates the crap out of me is that Colon is going to go on and have a pretty good season this year, I’ll bet. Grandy eventually come up to par, hit .240/.340/.410 and no one will really complain.

      And the press will give Alderson a free ticket and say he did an OK job. When he completely misaligned resources and failed to solve anything here.

      • pete

        So who’s the SS in 2015 for the Mets? I was clamoring in Spring training for a reliable veteran catcher but SA feels he doesn’t need. So keep twiddling your thumbs Jerry because the Mets are like that hamster you see who keeps jumping on and off his wheel and doesn’t realize he’s right where he started when he’s done.

      • Chris F

        +1 JG

    • Chris F

      And SA continues to get a free pass like JG notes. The CY signing was bad from the word go. Lagares posted 2nd or 3rd highest WAR on the team in2013, so Alderson goes out and makes a complete mess of the OF, while at the same time failing to sign much needed position players who fill gaps in the line up. Instead he created both offensive and defensive log jams that screams [i]not playing for this year[/i], but leaves me asking “what year then?”

      Why not get Jose Abreu (my first choice) or Mark Trumbo and solve 1B?
      Why not sign Stephen Drew for 3 years?
      Why not add a C like Ryan Hannigan or Kurt Suzuki to groom TdA?
      Why not go after Nori Aoki?

  • Wilponzi

    Chris Young is just awful. The Mets should swallow the money and sent hit off, anywhere.

  • Larry love

    Release Chris young. Play Lagares granderson Abreu everday. No matter lefty or righty pitcher. A batter should be able to hit whether lefty or righty pitcher if he can’t release him

    • pete

      Larry this is one cheap organization. Don’t you get it? Instead of paying him what would have become guaranteed $ SA released him so that the team could Save on the remainder of his contract.They’re not going to release him. They’re going to pray very hard and hope he gets hot so they can trade him at the deadline. If not he’ll be with the team until the end of the season. How exciting! Eh Larry?

      • pete

        Sorry the him is Kyle Farnsworth

  • Larry Love

    Are u Shalom Pete from ICC ? Mets should be like Yanks even though I don’t like them. Get best player at every position no matter the cost

  • pete

    Sorry Larry that’s not me. I always loved that the Mets weren’t like the Yankees so when they beat them it was sweeter. Just a payroll in line with the number one market in baseball would be more appropriate say 125- 130 million per year. It’s bad enough when teams like the Twins and Royals outspend our team. It’s a joke. But the joke is on us.

    • Larry Love

      Your right ony 4 games out. Now is the time to spend money on catcher and outfielder to replace young and short stop.

  • SL

    The Young signing, for many of the reasons shown above (spending a huge % of budget on a guy who projects as a 20hr – lol – guy with a 310 OBP, shoddy defense, etc) actually demonstrates something far worse.
    Lack of ability to judge ones’ own players. They consistently failed to see what they have in Lagares, and I have heard much the same about, for example, Plawecki, who on first view this spring clearly seems to be a ML catcher in the making. It frankly also shows their error with Captain Kirk who needs to be give 500 AB’s. He projects as a better C Young for major league minimum. Kirk will hit 250 with 20 hr’s and far better defense than Young.

    Editor’s Note – Please do not capitalize words in your post, as it’s a violation of our Comment Policy.

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