Selflessness. Of the many cliché words we use to define
the careers of our favorite athletes, “selflessness” was the first word that
came to mind when I heard Michael Young was finally hanging them up. In our
current state of professional sports, you could look back and argue that he
became somewhat of a Unicorn. Think about it. How many times do we see
prominent athletes demanding trades or transferring from schools because
they’re too prideful to agree with coaching and management that they need make
a position change or take a lesser role for the betterment of their team?
From 2004 until his final year as a Ranger in 2012, fans
watched Young make position changes three times, play all four infield
positions in 2011 and 2012 serving as a designated hitter almost double the
amount of games he played at any defensive position during that time, all while
he was being shopped around in trade talks every offseason after 2008. When you
look at it that way, it starts to make a little sense why he might have become
a defensive liability from an advanced metric perspective, particularly after
the move from shortstop to third base. I realize he didn’t handle that move as
cheerfully as the others, because in that case he did request a trade, but can
you really blame him? The guy had just come off a 2008 season in which he won a
Gold Glove at shortstop and combined with Ian Kinsler to have one of the best
single seasons by a shortstop second base defensive tandem in Major League
history. How would you handle a move like that at your job?
Forget defense for a minute, though. The word most commonly
associated with Michael Young’s career is undoubtedly “consistency,” this
pertaining to him as an offensive player. As a hitter, Young recorded at least
150 hits every season from 2002 to 2012, six of which were 200 plus hit seasons
(2003-2007, 2011), and he’s retiring as a career .300 hitter. However, it
appeared to me that he became a victim of his past successes in 2012, as many
Rangers fans--or “Post-Cliff Lee Trade” fans as I like to call them—began
acting like spoiled children when he didn’t produce the usual cookie-cutter numbers
he had in his previous nine seasons, failing to understand that an off year for
Young is a benchmark year for an average Major League hitter.
Nowadays around the water cooler, your basic baseball card
stats hold no weight in arguments regarding a player’s production, and scientifically
speaking, it’s indisputable that Young had a down year at the plate after being
deemed the club’s “Super Utility” Designated Hitter in 2012. Hell, you could
even say he hurt the team considering he posted a negative Win Probability Added (WPA) that year. But
what amazed me in 2012 was the amount of backlash he received from fans. If you
followed Twitter closely during games that year, nearly every time he struck
out, flew out, or grounded out, there were fans expressing this growing
sentiment that he had received more credit than he was due, and that the
perception of him being a “veteran leader” or “classy ballplayer” was the only
reason he continued to see the field, in spite of his declining offensive
production. The reason it shocked me so much was because he had just put up one
of the best years of his career at the plate in 2011, as he led the league in
hits (213), posted a .338/.380/.474 slash line, and finished Top 8 in the
American League MVP race. I’ll even go so far as to say that he was the unsung
hero for the Rangers when they made the postseason in 2011, as he had to fill in
at third base for Adrian Beltre after a hamstring injury caused him to miss 37
games, during which he posted a slash line of .354/.399/.469, 21 RBIs, and a
.645 WPA. Yet, the increasing resentment of him in 2012 made it seem as if none
of that ever happened.
From a personal standpoint, the final word I would like to
affix to Michael Young’s career is “unorthodox.” Growing up a lifelong fan of
DFW sports, I often like to make comparisons of Michael Young and Dallas
Mavericks Power Forward, Dirk Nowitzki. I could bore you with numerous reasons
as to why I do this—trust me, it’s a completely different article in itself---
but I’ve always been awestruck by how they’ve managed to take the most
difficult aspects of their respective sports and turn them into the prominent
reasons they have had such successful careers. Dirk is continuing to play out a
Hall of Fame career that has been defined by an indefensible, off-balance
one-legged fade away that had never been seen before. NBA players take
off-balance shots all of the time, but there has never been a player make a
career out of shooting them the way Dirk has. And even as more and more players
attempt to mimic it, we may never see it again.
While it’s not nearly as unprecedented as Dirk’s signature
“Flamingo Fade,” Michael Young’s uncanny ability to hit to the opposite field
is comparable when considering the level of difficulty and the fact that both
have had consistently prolonged success. Ask any Physics Professor what the
hardest skill to master in all of sports is and I can almost guarantee nine out
of ten will say hitting a baseball. Because in order for it to work, two round
objects have to make contact squarely---casual fans, feel free to take a moment
to wrap your mind around that if you need to. Now pair that with the fact that
hitting to the opposite field is the most difficult aspect of being a
successful hitter, and you should have a little more appreciation for Young’s
craft when you consider that this is where he made his money in the league. His
production never came from the long ball, but he managed to make hitting hard
line drives into right center field the staple of his offensive proficiency. So
to reiterate, Young’s mastery of a skill you rarely see a player find consistent
success with for a sustained period of time is just one reason why I love to
compare him to Dirk, besides my bias for all things DFW.
As a Rangers fan, if you took a true “Seamheadian” approach
in your analysis of Michael Young’s career, I get it, science and sabermetrics
don’t come to his defense---even though he was ranked as a Top 40 hitter from
2003 to 2011 according to WAR---but you don’t go about owning franchise
records in runs, hits, doubles, triples, and total bases by being a mediocre
player, especially when your franchise has featured prolific hitters like Ivan
Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, and Rafael Palmeiro. Sure, Young was a poor defender
at different times during his career---this may come as a newsflash, but Derek
Jeter has been one of the worst defensive players in the league for more than a
decade, but you don't hear too many Yankees fans calling for his head, do you? Sure, Young
had a couple of spats with management, but did he ever put himself ahead of his
team by failing to comply? Like I said earlier, I will always acknowledge the
sabermetrical aspect of baseball. Personally, I love studying sabermetrics.
They’ve created a new cult of baseball fans, and it’s been tremendous for the
game. But at some point, I think fans need to see beyond the numbers with Young
when it comes to evaluating him, and instead, appreciate the fact that he served the game
the right way for more than a decade, realizing that he’ll be one of the last
“good guys” to come through professional sports. And let’s face it, I can sit
here and continue to attach more adjectives to MY's
career, but what’s the point? It’s more for me to type when I could just tell
you to go Google the damn Boy Scout Law.
Of course I’m sad he’s calling it quits, but I can’t blame
him. Look at all he’s accomplished in his career. The Batting Titles, the
All-Star Game appearances and MVP, and all the club records he holds in Texas. Look
at all the awesome memories he gave Rangers fans that starved for a competitive
team throughout the mid 2000’s before helping lead them to the franchise’s first ever
postseason series victory and back-to-back American League titles. The only
thing he had left to do was chase a title on a contending team, and the only
team knocking on his door with the intentions of making him a starter was the
Brewers. Sure, Young won’t be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and you can
always point to science when debating his value. But after watching him play
the game the way he did for 14 years with his exceptional combination of
versatility and durability, I stand firm in my belief that if you had a team
full of competitors like Young, they’d likely contend year after year.
Gerald White
