Quoth a local rotochamp:

Hmmm…trying to find evidence that Young is a good outfielder and not finding it. ALL the defensive metrics hate him (plus/minus, PMR, UZR, and RZR). It limits his upside a bit as hes going to HAVE to mash to be a star.

1.  His career range factors are above average at LF and at RF.  http://www.baseball-reference.com/y/youngde03.shtml

In other words, although our stathead attempts to count his [outs as a % of chances he had] make him look bad ... his actual outs made look good.  

It's quite possible that there's something wrong with the way we counted the number of chances he REALISTICALLY had.   Do bear in mind that UZR and PMR are theoretical.  Range factor counts the outs actually made on the field. 

Look, I'm not saying that we should anoint RF the #1 defensive metric.  I'm saying we should keep in perspective that UZR and PMR are theoretical stats that can be, and often are, misleading.  David Pinto would be the first one to tell you that for any given player, over the short- and medium-term, PMR might mislead us.

When a guy is making plenty of outs, but the theoretical stats say that, well, it seems to us he had lots of chances, we don't always know what's going on.   Who knows?  Maybe in a given set of 500 chances, a lot of balls dropped into a left fielder's area that he had no shot at?

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2.  Delmon Young runs fast.

It's not *impossible* that (for example) you could put a track guy in LF in your slo-pitch league, and an accountant next to him, and slap me sideways, that CPA is just so cotton-pickin' smart, wow he's a better outfielder than the guy who takes 5 steps to his 4.  But those of us who've played baseball aren't going to bet that way.  :- )

A number of non-athletic saberdudes seem UNAWARE that good defense in the outfield is mostly a question of how fast you can run.

I played OF.  I know that a good jump is worth one step.  I know that positioning is important -- but that's done for you in the majors.

It would be one thing to be AWARE of how much speed matters when you're in the OF ... and then to say, well, in this case I don't buy that Delmon Young covers much ground because of X, Y, and Z.

But saberdudes routinely anoint slow guys as good OF's and scoff at freakish athletes like Delmon Young as butchers.  Personally, I'm a lot slower to assume that a superfreak athlete can't run down a fly ball.

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3.  Young's managers have put him in center field a fair amount.

How much credibility do you give the ML managers who watch Young play day-in and day-out? 

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4.  IF Young has in fact had poor results, it is probably a function of his being 21-22 years old, untrained, and disinterested in team skills.  His defense would figure to improve as he got past, say, age 21.

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5.  If Jack Zduriencik gives up Brandon Morrow or Jeff Clement for Delmon Young, you can assume that he likes Young's defensive outlook going forward.

Fangraphs' metrics are great.  You've got to be aware of them.  But you've also got to be aware of the fact that Delmon Young runs fast.  :- )

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Personally, I don't care for the idea of trading Jeff Clement for a guy who hits RH.  But to win the pennant, the M's need four star hitters, and they can't all be lefthanded.  ... anyway, I'm a bit squeamish about your Grand Maneuver being a righty hitter -- without BB -- in Safeco, but as to the glove, no worries there.  Young has the tools.  He just needs to grow up.

Cheers,

Dr D