Has it come to this?

[lastingsgriller]

this is probably the most interesting conversation in the baseball world this year.. as far as I'm concerned it has no relevence to me as both of my leagues are keeper leagues and I have Longoria in both of them, but I still find my self having a lot of interest in the reynolds issue.

1) what is the reasoning that makes so many people so sure that he will fall off next year?

2) why are pitchers still giving him pitches to hit? I think he has proven that he will chase stuff all over the place. he is a strikeout machine.

3) if you pass on him in the 2nd round next year (most likely will be the 4th 3B drafted after Roid, Wright and Longoria), how badly are you kicking yourself if he has another year like this.

4) 3B = Roid, Wright, Longoria, Aramis, Reynolds, or you're screwed. oh wait.. Youk, forgot about Youk.. still very thin.

5) what if at the end of the season he has 50 HR's? does that change anything? how about 55?

6) this guy is an enigma.

[jackie hayes]

this is probably the most interesting conversation in the baseball world this year.. as far as I'm concerned it has no relevence to me as both of my leagues are keeper leagues and I have Longoria in both of them, but I still find my self having a lot of interest in the reynolds issue.

1) what is the reasoning that makes so many people so sure that he will fall off next year?

2) why are pitchers still giving him pitches to hit? I think he has proven that he will chase stuff all over the place. he is a strikeout machine.

3) if you pass on him in the 2nd round next year (most likely will be the 4th 3B drafted after Roid, Wright and Longoria), how badly are you kicking yourself if he has another year like this.

4) 3B = Roid, Wright, Longoria, Aramis, Reynolds, or you're screwed. oh wait.. Youk, forgot about Youk.. still very thin.

5) what if at the end of the season he has 50 HR's? does that change anything? how about 55?

6) this guy is an enigma.

On (4) -- Zimmerman, Sandoval, Young, and Figgins have all been good, as well. Inge, too, pre-injury. Stewart and Peralta have been disappointing but have good chances for a rebound. It's not an extremely strong position, but I don't think it looks like the disaster others are seeing.

[The Artful Dodger]

this is probably the most interesting conversation in the baseball world this year.. as far as I'm concerned it has no relevence to me as both of my leagues are keeper leagues and I have Longoria in both of them, but I still find my self having a lot of interest in the reynolds issue.

1) what is the reasoning that makes so many people so sure that he will fall off next year?

Because he shares the same bat as Rickie Weeks, that's why.

[jake_harv88]

this is probably the most interesting conversation in the baseball world this year.. as far as I'm concerned it has no relevence to me as both of my leagues are keeper leagues and I have Longoria in both of them, but I still find my self having a lot of interest in the reynolds issue.

1) what is the reasoning that makes so many people so sure that he will fall off next year?

2) why are pitchers still giving him pitches to hit? I think he has proven that he will chase stuff all over the place. he is a strikeout machine.

3) if you pass on him in the 2nd round next year (most likely will be the 4th 3B drafted after Roid, Wright and Longoria), how badly are you kicking yourself if he has another year like this.

4) 3B = Roid, Wright, Longoria, Aramis, Reynolds, or you're screwed. oh wait.. Youk, forgot about Youk.. still very thin.

5) what if at the end of the season he has 50 HR's? does that change anything? how about 55?

6) this guy is an enigma.

On (4) -- Zimmerman, Sandoval, Young, and Figgins have all been good, as well. Inge, too, pre-injury. Stewart and Peralta have been disappointing but have good chances for a rebound. It's not an extremely strong position, but I don't think it looks like the disaster others are seeing.

Dont forget about Gordon Beckham. I'm not saying he's a guarantee to fall off next year I'm just saying at this point he's going to go too high in drafts for me to be willing to take a risk on him. He might completely repeat next year and I would say congrats to his owners but for me I'll be taking the wait and see approach. Think Josh Hamilton this year. Sure he could have been monsterous again this season but was I willing to risk my first or second round pick to find out? Absolutely not. Skepticism is a fantasy owners best friend

[jackie hayes]

On Beckham, he's been excellent in real-world baseball, but I think his moderate hr total keeps his draft position down a bit. Probably a low-end starter, but with good upside.

[StlSluggers]

Why Isn't Mark Reynolds Chris Davis?

A couple weeks ago I looked at Chris Davis’s contact struggles. In that post I displayed a histogram with all contact rates from 2003 to 2008 and Davis’s half season of 2009. Here is the same figure without Davis, but with Mark Reynolds’s 2008 contact rate indicated.



Not as much of an outlier as Davis, but last year Reynolds’s rate of 62.3% was the lowest of any regular since 2003. This year he is similarly lowest in the league with 63.4%. Reynolds, unlike Davis, makes it work. Even with this very very low contact rate Reynolds has a wOBA over .400, 12th best in the league.

One thing he has over Davis is much better plate discipline, swinging at only a quarter of pitches out of the zone compared to Davis’s 35.4%. As a result, and because pitchers don’t throw in the zone to him that much, he has a healthy walk rate of 11.8%.

In addition the pitches that Reynolds does make contact with are very likely to be HRs. Fly balls make up 46% of his balls in play and 28% of those are HRs. That means 12.9% of his balls in play are HRs (tops in the league with Adam Dunn second at 11.6%). As a result Reynolds is second in the league in HRs with 32.

Reynolds represents what Davis needs to be if he is going to succeed with a huge whiff rate. He needs to stop swinging at pitches out of the zone, and make sure the pitches he hits go a long way. Not rocket science, but it is helpful to see someone how makes it work with a big whiff rate.