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As reported in the Detroit Free Press, Tigers' GM Dave Dombrowski (who I occasionally confuse with this guy or this guy) announced that the Tigers weren't planning to bring back American League Championship Series MVP Delmon Young next season.
Young, playing out a 1-year 6.75 million dollar contract, hit .267/.296/.411 in 151 games for the Tigers in 2012 with 18 HR, 74 RBI and a 20/112 walks-to-strikeouts rate. He began the season as Detroit's starting left fielder but was soon swapped with Andy Dirks and moved to DH limiting his defensive "exposure" to only 31 games.
Delmon negated some of his lackluster performance over the regular season by putting together his best stretch of baseball in the postseason. Young went 6 for 17 with a pair of homeruns and 6 RBI in the ALCS and 5 for 14 with another homeun in the World Series.
I'm assuming that Dombrowski and the Tigers saw beyond Young's one atypical week and a half of October hitting and instead saw a player who at only 27 can no longer can play defense and who produced worse offensive results over the 25 weeks of the regular season than the proverbial "replacement player." (-1.2 WAR) I'm assuming that unlike a lot of casual fans, the Tigers front office has not forgotten about this little incident, either.
Who is the real Delmon Young? Is he a much-talented player that squandered what could have been a great career through indifference and an unstable temperament - or a vastly overrated prospect that couldn't live up to unrealistic expectations? (And what lies ahead for Delmon?)
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