Delmon Young a Phillie?
When the news broke in Philadelphia Tuesday that the fielding-challenged ex-Twin agreed to a one-year, $750,000 deal — the reaction was fairly volatile — despite the fact that Young won the ALCS MVP last year when the Tigers knocked the Yankees out of the playoffs.
Here’s a roundup, from sources following the NL East franchise:
From Yahoo.com’s Big League Stew blog: “Young almost never walks, his career slugging percentage is .425 and he can’t run. And he’s often out of shape.”
From Sports On Earth blogger Jonathan Bernhardt: “Delmon Young is categorically unqualified to be playing right field in the bigs. He might be unqualified to play it even in the high minors. Or the low minors.
From the SB Nation Tigers blog named “Bless These Boys”: “Tigers fans can finally breathe easy in 2013. There was no chance Delmon might come back to Detroit.”
But it’s not all hate mail.
Fightin’ Phillies blogger Rich Baxter points out that this is a low-risk move, writing: “If he plays like the Delmon Young of 2010, we have a winner.”
And at Philly.com (Philadelphia Inquirer), Young is portrayed as a player at work trying to restore his image following last year’s incident in New York where he was charged with aggravated harrassment, using an anti-Semitic slur.
The funniest line (and there were many), may come from SI’s Joe Sheehan:
Ben Revere, playing between Darin Ruf and Delmon Young, could very well be dead by Memorial Day. #phillies #crueltytoCFs
— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) January 22, 2013
