Chris Young: Should Pitcher be Owned in More Leagues?

Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

Through the first half of 2014, one pitcher on the Seattle Mariners is having a great year. No, not Felix Hernandez. No, not Hisashi Iwakuma. Actually, they are having great years. But, those two aren’t available in many fantasy free agent pools.

Chris Young, on the other hand, is probably available in your league, and like his teammates, Young is having a great season.

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Now, in his last six outings, Young has a 2.13 ERA and a 0.79 WHIP, but look at what he’s given fantasy owners on a start-by-start basis.

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I always like to finish on a positive note, so let’s start here.

What are the negatives?

• Chris Young is not a strikeout guy. Every now and again, he may get you about a strikeout an inning in a given start but the more likely scenario is one strikeout for every two innings.
• A fairly cautious pitch/innings watch. He made it into the seventh inning a few times, even went eight once. But generally, even the good outings went around six innings. Young has dealt with a lot of injuries in his career, having never thrown 180 innings in a season and only topping 170 twice and 160 once more. The Mariners also have other starters that generally go deep into games, so their bullpen is often pretty well rested when Young goes.

Now, what are the positives?

• That’s 19 outings with the first one being a relief appearance. Young has started 18 games in 2014 and produced 11 quality starts.
• He’s never failed to throw a quality start in more than two consecutive outings.
• For whatever reason, Young has had incredible success against the Oakland Athletics. That may not seem like much but remember this. Not only are the A’s generally an offense you want to avoid, but the A’s and Mariners square off in two more series this year, both in September. While Young has had some bad starts, the success against the A’s should give fantasy owners confidence to start Young against anyone.
• I’ll save you some time and math. This is what Young’s home stats look like in 2014. [table id=986 /]
• That’s good enough to say Young should be starting for your fantasy team in every home start, but not a big enough gap to say that he shouldn’t be starting on the road.

So, should he be owned in more leagues?

Yes, absolutely. The quality of Seattle’s pitching staff really helps here. When Felix and Iwakuma are going deep into games consistently, the rested bullpen means that Young’s bad starts should be kept in check. Lloyd McClendon won’t have to think twice about getting Young whenever he starts to show signs of trouble.

Chris Young has been dealing all year, and his good starts have far outnumbered the bad. I like how he projects for the remainder of 2014 but at the very least, Young should be picked up until he begins to show more signs of struggle.