Decision Time On Dmitri Young

The time has come for the Nationals to decide whether to trade their All-Star first baseman, Dmitri Young.  He’s arguably their best player this year, but he’s a free agent after the season and might yield a solid prospect.

Phil Wood would like to retain Young, and even sign him to a multiyear free agent contract.  He extols Young’s virtues as a "personable, productive, and solid candidate for comeback-player-of-the-year honors." 

Young’s 180 in public perception comes as quite a surprise to me.  In April of ’06 he choked a 21 year-old woman and faced a domestic violence charge.  An arrest warrant was issued in June when he failed to show up for court.  He later pleaded no contest to the charge.  Young’s had other problems as well, and I wouldn’t criticize those.  I’m glad he’s recovered.  But he still did something disgusting, far worse than anything Alex Rodriguez has ever done.  Leave him alone, let him play baseball, give him a second chance, sure.  But let’s not give the man a medal.  Save the adoration for an actual role model.  I know you may not agree, but I had to get that off my chest.

Anyway, Mark Zuckerman and Rick Snider think trading Young is a no-brainer.  The alternative would be letting him leave via free agency and taking the draft pick.  I talked to ESPN’s Keith Law to learn exactly what kind of pick the Nats should expect for Young:

"I’d say there’s a decent chance he’s a no-compensation guy, probably an equal chance he’s a B (one sandwich pick), and a slight chance he’s an A (one sandwich pick plus a pick from the signing team)."

Over the 2006-07 seasons, Young really hasn’t amassed the kind of stats that vault a player up in the Elias rankings.  The Nats wouldn’t get much if any compensation for him.  As far as published reports, only the Braves have shown interest so far.