KC Royals: Five Reasons Chris Young Can Continue to Dominate

KC Royals general manager Dayton Moore found a perfect fit for his rotation when he signed Chris Young last winter.

Young dominated the Milwaukee Brewers Tuesday night, pitching seven shutout innings while allowing five hits and notching three strikeouts. Chris Young added two singles at the plate, and became the first American League pitcher to drive in three runs since 2008.

Not bad for a guy nobody but the KC Royals wanted last winter.

The 36-year-old Chris Young signed a 1-year, $675,000 deal with the Kansas City Royals because Dayton Moore was the only general manager willing to offer him a major-league contract. Young’s contract also includes approximately $5 million in performance bonuses.

Other teams lacked interest in signing the 6’10” Young, despite a solid 2014 campaign in Seattle in which he posted a 12-9 record and a 3.65 ERA in 31 starts. Though Young won the 2014 Comeback Player of the Year award, his fastball only averaged 85.2 miles per hour.

Apparently, other teams didn’t want to invest in Chris Young because they thought he was succeeding with smoke and mirrors. Or they could have been concerned with the shoulder issues that caused Young to miss the 2013 season.

Young has showed slightly improved velocity in 2015 with the KC Royals. His fastball has averaged 86.2 miles per hour in 2015, a full 1 mph jump over last season.

Yet, the real story with Chris Young is how Dayton Moore signed him to fill the long-relief role, with the possibility that he could move into the rotation in case of injury. Young threw five innings of no-hit baseball in his first start for Kansas City May 1, in place of Edinson Volquez who had been suspended for his part in a brawl against the Chicago White Sox.

Both Danny Duffy and Jason Vargas went to the disabled list soon after, causing Chris Young to move into the rotation.

Chris Young has been the best starter on the staff ever since.

For the season, Chris Young is 6-2, with a 1.98 ERA in 59.0 innings pitched and eight starts. He’s been the most reliable pitcher in a rotation that has struggled most of the season.

In fact, Chris Young has been so good that he would rank second in the American League in ERA behind Oakland’s Sonny Gray (1.60 ERA) if he had pitched enough innings to qualify.

Can Chris Young sustain this performance? Or do Kansas City Royals fans have to expect he will turn into a pumpkin (sabermetric guys would say “regress to the mean”) as the 2015 season wears on?

I humbly present five reasons why I think Chris Young will continue to dominate:

Next: Chris Young Looks Like He's Throwing Harder Than 86 MPH

Jun 9, 2015; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Chris Young (32) pitches in the first inning against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

2) Chris Young Has A Deceptive Pitching Motion

The time it takes for a ball to travel to home plate isn’t the only thing that determines how long a hitter has to react to a pitch.

Before a hitter can decide whether or not to swing at a pitch, first he has to see it. Some pitchers make it harder than others for hitters to quickly lock in on the ball with their eyes.

Such pitchers can gain a critical fraction of a second with deception that can make them significantly more difficult to hit.

Hitters are taught to look for the ball approximately at the pitcher’s cap level. Pitchers that can change their arm slot, or simply make it hard for the hitter’s eyes to lock onto the ball can develop a major advantage that their velocity does not reveal.

KC Royals pitcher Chris Young is such a player.

Current Kansas City Star writer Andy McCullough wrote a piece for the New Jersey Star Ledger about Chris Young’s deceptive motion in 2011 when Young was pitching for the Mets.

Not only does Young hide the ball behind his knee in his windup, he also throws the ball at a much higher release point than hitters are accustomed to seeing.

McCullough wrote:

Second, Young’s over-the-top release alters a batter’s eye level. His fastball appears fat as it approaches the plate. But the ball doesn’t drop into the zone. It rides high, above a batter’s hands, spoiling his swing. “When you swing,” [Jose] Reyes said, “pop-up to the infield.”

Brian Costa of the Wall Street Journal called Young high pitches “the best optical illusion in baseball”. Mets third baseman David Wright told Costa:

“It’s tough because as a hitter, when you see a ball up there,” Wright said as he held his hand about shoulder-high, “you think it’s going to end up kind of here,” he said, bringing his hand down to his belt. “But when it kind of stays at that level, it’s tough to lay off, and it’s even tougher to hit.”

Chris Young’s height, however, is not entirely an advantage. Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen told McCullough that tall guys have a difficult time repeating their mechanics. This difficulty might help explain why Young is seeming to hit his peak with the Kansas City Royals at the relatively advanced age of 36.

Next: Chris Young's Unique Pitching Approach

May 22, 2015; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals pitcher Chris Young (32) delivers a pitch against the St. Louis Cardinals during the first inning at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

3) Chris Young Has A Unique Approach To Pitching

Most pitching coaches emphasize keeping the ball low. If you keep the ball low, you tend to get more ground balls and prevent extra base hits and home runs.

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This traditional approach to pitching results in hitters seeing a constant diet of low pitches. That means, to survive, hitter need to learn how to handle the ball low in the zone.

But, Chris Young likes to throw high.

Pitchers that throw high in the zone, tend to be power pitchers. Not guys like Chris Young who rarely break 87 mph on the radar gun. Conventional wisdom suggests those players will end up serving meatballs that end up in the seats.

While Chris Young does give up his share of home runs (26 last season, and 139 for his career in 1114.2 innings pitched), he also gets a lot of popups (15.2 percent of his batted balls result in infield fly balls over his career).

Fangraphs.com writer Eno Sarris said this about Chris Young’s tendency to throw up in the zone in an article from 2014:

When I asked him if throwing a mid-80s fastball up in the zone was daring, that’s when things got serious. “That’s your opinion,” he told me. “I’ll show you a chart on every hitter that shows you that most hitters have a hole in the zone up.”

When he looked into the matter, Sarris found that while pitching low in the zone does lead to ground balls; meanwhile, pitching high in the strike zone does not necessarily lead to an increase in home runs.

Chris Young insisted to Sarris that pitching high in the strike zone makes sense in the current environment:

“You can look across the board and see that pitching up can be just as effective as pitching down, maybe moreso,” he said. “Hitting is cyclical. I’ve given up plenty of home runs on low balls. Hitters are very good low ball hitters now, too.”

Sarris concluded his 2014 article this way:

By being able to hit the high-and-tight pitch, Young is able to exploit a baseball-wide hole. By concentrating on high fastballs, he’s working against the current low-ball trend in baseball. By focusing on each particular hitter, he’s making sure his game plan is locked down. Add in a little boost in perceived velocity that might come from Young’s natural mechanics and height, and that’s how you can still get great innings from a 35-year-old pitcher with a mid-80s fastball.

Chris Young is doing the same thing for the KC Royals this year, except he’s even better. One difference is that Young has switched up his pitch mix. Last year, Chris Young threw fastballs 66.4% of the time. In 2015, his fastball rate has dropped to 60.8%, while his slider rate has zoomed to a career high 37.7%.

The change seems to have helped Chris Young succeed in his first season with the Kansas City Royals . His 1.98 ERA is nothing short of outstanding.

Next: Chris Young Is Finally Healthy

Apr 16, 2015; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Kansas City Royals pitcher Chris Young (32) pitches in the fifth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

4) Chris Young Is Finally Healthy

Chris Young played in the All-Star game for the San Diego Padres in 2007. In 2008, Young began to make regular trips to the disabled list.

Over the next five seasons,  Chris Young pitched in just 60 games and 337 innings.

Betsided

The litany of an injured pitcher was obvious from his statistics. In 2008 he made 18 starts, and pitched 102.1 innings. In 2009, that went down to 14 starts and 76.0 innings. Chris Young made a mere four starts each of the next two seasons, before managing 20 starts and 115.0 innings for the Mets in 2012.

He then missed all of 2013.

Chris Young’s shoulder pain was so severe, he could not sleep on it or hold his children according to ESPN.com‘s Jim Caple. According the the Kansas City Star, Young could not complete pushups or use an elliptical machine without pain.

A doctor eventually diagnosed him with thoracic outlet syndrome, and removed part of a rib and neck muscles to relieve pressure from the nerve. Chris Young told ESPN’s Caple last year:

“It’s been pain free,” Young said. “It’s been a big blessing for me and I don’t take it for granted. I was at a point where I was basically ready to walk away. ‘I’ve done what I can and my shoulder just is not meant for this.’ And so, after having surgery, I woke up and I knew the pain was gone. Ever since, it’s just continued to get better and better.”

Apparently, Chris Young is feeling even better this season. Not only has he had terrific results (1.98 ERA in 59.0 innings pitched in eight starts), he’s also gained 1 mph in average fastball velocity.

Next: Chris Young Is A Perfect Fit For The KC Royals

May 27, 2015; Bronx, NY, USA; Kansas City Royals third baseman

(8) is greeted in dugout by relief pitcher Chris Young (32) after his home run in the first inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

5) Chris Young Is A Perfect Fit For The KC Royals

Chris Young has never had a defensive and home park that suits him as well as the Kansas City Royals and Kauffman Stadium.

Chris Young is an extreme fly ball pitcher. For his career, hitters put 74.6% of batted balls in the air against him. His nemesis has always been the gopher ball.

Kauffman Stadium’s outfield has more playing area than any park in major-league baseball. Even better, the KC Royals pair that enormous park with the most ridiculous outfield defense in baseball.

In right field, the Kansas City Royals have four-time Gold Glove winner Alex Gordon. Lorenzo Cain patrols center, who currently ranks second among outfielders in major league baseball with 11 Defensive Runs Saved DRS). The Royals currently play Alex Rios in right, but will substitute speedy Jarrod Dyson in the late innings.

Those guys can run down the baseball.

As a team, the KC Royals lead the majors with 43 Defensive Runs Saved. The next closest team is the Diamondbacks, with 30.

More importantly, in Kansas City, Chris Young has found an organization who believes in a pitch-to-contact philosophy. General Manager Dayton Moore has filled his rotation with pitch-to-contact innings eaters like Jeremy Guthrie, Jason Vargas, and Edinson Volquez.

Chris Young is just another addition to an already-established approach to pitching.

While Chris Young’s low strikeout rate and unusually low Batting Average Balls In Play (BABIP of .199) suggest he’s just riding a hot streak, the above reasons indicate he’s got more going on than meets the eye.

While abnormally low, Chris Young’s BABIP isn’t exactly an accident. For his career, he sports an unusual .249 BABIP (league average hovers around .300). Young has also never played in front of a defense as good a fit for his game as the Kansas City Royals, so his improvement isn’t exactly surprising. Dave Cameron wrote an article for Fangraphs.com about Chris Young’s ability to maintain an usually low BABIP.

Sabermetric peripherals like Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), or adjusted Fielding INdependent Pitching (xFIP) always underestimate guys like Chris Young due to his low strikeout rate. Yet, if you add his strikeout rate (K%) of 17.0% with his IFFB% (infield fly ball rate) of 14.4%, you have a pitcher that gets 31.4% almost sure outs.

By comparison, Detroit ace David Price sports a very similar combined popup and strikeout rate of 33.4%.

KC Royals fans have five solid reasons to believe Chris Young’s 2015 success is not a fluke. Dayton Moore had better be prepared to cut Chris Young a big bonus check at the end of the season.

He’s already been worth it.

Next: Chris Young Does It All In 7-2 Win Over Brewers

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