Dmitri Young Released

[Chisox73]

Tigers release DH Young
Associated Press
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2576763

DETROIT -- The Detroit Tigers unconditionally released designated hitter Dmitri Young after Wednesday's loss to the Seattle Mariners.

Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski said the move was "strictly performance-related."

Young was activated from the disabled list July 21 after he left the Tigers on May 22 to undergo treatment for substance abuse at a California rehab center.

He was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in Wednesday's 5-4, 10-inning loss.

"I'm not going to talk," said Young, whose bags were packed for the upcoming series at Minnesota.

Young spent 30 days in the rehabilitation facility and three weeks working out with minor-league teams. He concluded his time away from the Tigers by hitting .452 in eight games at Triple-A Toledo.

Young, a switch-hitter, was batting .250 with seven home runs and 23 RBI for the Tigers this season. He hit .271 with 21 homers and 72 RBI for Detroit last year.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press

[Eva]

Was Young playing that bad since coming back? I was under the impression he was doing ok, not bad enough to be released.

[Chisox73]

This came as a surprisde to me too.

Maybe Jen might know.

[~*TiGeRs f@N*~]

Dude! I was just gonna post this! LoL I AM SO HAPPY!

Ok theories going around town here is that they wanted to 'lighten the load' so to speak. DY is a club house cancer! There has been more than one source that has confirmed it. The Tigers have fallen into a HUGE slump since his return and the rumour around these parts is that the Tigers aren't producing due to the shake up of the chemestry in the team that started with Youngs arrival. The boys have gone from care free and jovial to very somber. One bad apple ruins the bunch, you know what I mean? So we pick the rotten one, throw him out and HOPEFULLY the Boys of Summer return and we go back to the way things used to be around here.

Greg Brady from sports talk radio WDFN also seems to think that something major went down during the three hour rain delay yesterday. I don't know what, but that was what he said on his show this morning. Unless is was more of his regular antics and this was kinda the 'last straw' sort of deal, I don't believe that theory to be true and here's why: D'mitri had his bags packed and ready to go. Why would he have his bags packed if this was a 'sudden' thing? Something tells me that when he came back he was told 'you have X amount of time to straighten up and fly right or else you're gone.' And I believe that's what really happened.

[Eva]

I figured as much. Young's production didn't look that awful to warrent a cut, but if he was a problem, considering Young's recent history, that's not to hard to believe that he was a problem with the team. He'll likely find a job some place, but the Tigers should be fine without him. After all, they were the best team in MLB without him. :D

"Llighten the load" putting it lightly with Young, if you get what I mean. :laff:

[~*TiGeRs f@N*~]

DREW SHARP: Young's demeanor and offensive struggles weren't worth distraction

September 8, 2006

Email this Print this BY DREW SHARP

FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
MINNEAPOLIS -- Compassion has its limits. There comes a point when being smart trumps being nice, and the Tigers reached that juncture with Dmitri Young.

He wasn't getting it done. He wasn't coming back next season.

The Tigers turned the page Thursday and didn't look back. It's the only way they can get through the final weeks of a pennant race -- forget what happened yesterday and focus exclusively on today.

The new day brought Marcus Thames, one of the more efficient power sources in baseball, as the new primary designated hitter.

Who knows if he is one of those reserves who gets worse the more he plays, but for a one-day-at-a-time guy like manager Jim Leyland, Thames did his job in the series opener against Minnesota.

He smacked the ball all over the Metrodome.

The Tigers put the uncomfortable feelings of Young's dismissal a day earlier behind them and moved 5 1/2 games up on the second-place Twins in the AL Central.

"I'm proud of them," said Leyland after the Tigers' 7-2 romp over Minnesota. "But it's one game. It's just one more off the schedule, and we put it in the right column."

At first blush, Young's surprising release resembled an organization scouring for a scapegoat to deflect the increasing heat off a young team exposing a few cracks.

But Young is gone because his recent struggles offensively weren't worth the potential distractions his more insulated personality created in an impressionable clubhouse.

He wasn't the same guy. How could anyone be under such circumstances?

The effervescence that was once the D.Y. signature was muted, replaced by what some club observers characterized as "sullen" or "somber." Those asked for comparisons said there were no similarities to his behavior from last year, suggesting that the team's decision had nothing to do with any suspected substance-abuse relapses.

It sounds cold-hearted, but the Tigers aren't Mother Teresa. They shouldn't have to extend a kind hand while scrambling to retain the consistency of the season's first two-thirds.

If you can't step up, then step out.

Young is out. Thames is in.

"It looks like I'm going to be getting more of a chance, and that's great," said Thames who cracked his team-high 25th home run.

The irony is that Young was perhaps Thames' staunchest advocate a year ago when spring training broke and Thames, inexplicably, wasn't making the trek northward in April.

"I told him (Wednesday) that I loved him for what he did for me," Thames said, "standing up for me the way that he did. I hate to get a job from somebody getting released, especially a guy like Dmitri. But it's my job now so I've got to go out and play."

The Twins' Scott Baker was only the second right-handed starter Thames faced in the last month. Left-handed power was a weakness Leyland hoped Young could remedy, but Thames, a right-handed hitter, hit the ball deep into the leftfield seats in the second inning off Baker.

Thames now has one homer for every 12.4 at-bats this season. That's a ratio that would have placed him among the top six in the AL in that category if he had more than 311 trips to the plate.

"It's been a tough last couple days with everything that's been going on," Thames said. "But I think we showed tonight how well we can put things behind us and move forward."

The timing of Young's release was peculiar, considering that Leyland batted him third in the order in the series finale against Seattle. But it doesn't seem there was any explosive trigger during the game that inspired the move, rather a gradual erosion.

Young apparently grew more distant and frustrated, coping with the new parameters of his life

As much as everyone would like to play the nice guy, pennant races offer a cruel reality. It's a bottom-line business now. If you don't get it done, you go home.

Sean Casey called his good friend Thursday, offering a reminder that he wasn't forgotten even though they no longer share adjoining cubicles.

"I think he's trying to process things right now," said Casey, who's known Young quite well since their playing days in Cincinnati "There are a lot of things that he has to sort out in his life right now. But when you think about it, it's just sad."

But the team had to move on and there was no better time than in one of the biggest series of the season.

Contact DREW SHARP at 313-223-4055 or dsharp@freepress.com.

[FrankieG]

I like your bad apple analogy Jen. The team just isn't going to work with a downer on it.