Jared Young in 2027

[Edgy MD]

Does anybody share my fear concern that Jared Young is going to have a particularly hard time returning to his prior level of play in 2027?

Like Ryan Church, he didn't take a ball to the dome, but a knee to the side of the head — somewhere around the temporal/spheroid area, which feels like a relatively vulnerable area to my ignorant mind.  And like Church — remembering how both plays unfolded in real time — he ended up motionless and face down in the dirt.

Unlike Church, the Mets blessedly didn't put him on a plane shortly after, so hopefully his recovery is better managed than Church's was.  But baseball is a game where you're triggered by reactions more than adrenaline, and my experience is that concussions dull reactions, with victims taking a touch longer to process.  I had a kid on my team when I was 12.  He had been hit by a car the previous year and spent like a month in a coma, and I was afraid to throw to him, as he seemed so disengaged.

He grew sharper in the next year or two, and then smoked a lot of weed and grew disengaged again.  But I guess that's my experience — post-concussion syndrome is like trying to function with a prolific weed habit, and I worry for young Mr. Young.

Maybe he ends up Jon Oleruding it and wearing a helmet on defense.

[seawolf17]

Jared Young is a very good player who had a nice year.

He will also turn 32 next summer.

"Hey, we got almost nothing from our first basemen last year. Let's run that guy back out there next season" is not the answer, concussion or not.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I agree. It would be negligent, even without the concussion, to go into 2027 counting on Jared Young as the primary first baseman. He can be a valued part of the roster, but let's not lean too heavily on him.

[Edgy MD]

Well, I certainly wasn't advocating that.  But as he got less than half the innings there last year, I never really considered him "that guy."

[seawolf17]

I guess the question here is "does the concussion impact 2027," not "hey let's give JY 650 AB and see what happens."

And your point is certainly a valid one - you just never know how the human body will react. But to me, it almost doesn't matter. If JY gets another half-season at first base, something has probably gone wrong.

[Centerfield]

Agree with everything that was said. Even without the concussion it would be foolish to rely on Young repeating what he did in 2026. And that production, which was better than anyone else we had, still wasn’t what you’d want out of that position. 
 

Jared Young should be one of the first options off the bench. A fill in during injury. Kinda what we pictured Mike Tauchman would be this year. 
 

I’ve said before that 1B is one of the few places we can actually improve our offense. The lack of options out there is daunting, but that’s where Stearns is going to have to earn his paycheck. If it’s Paul Goldschmidt/JY at 1B next year, he should be fired before Opening Day.