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16 Jun 2009 |
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| As a fantasy owner, I have never been a fan of players who excel in one area and contribute little in everything else. This is especially true with home run specialists, as many players in the game today seem to put up good home run numbers without it necessarily being their forte. Perhaps because of this bias, I was shocked to discover that Mark Reynolds is not only hitting the ball out of the park, he is hitting the ball in the park. And producing runs. And stealing bases. Wait, am I still talking about Mark "Career Strikeout Rate of 37.1%" Reynolds here? Is he really a five-tool threat? Before I assess the overall effect of Reynolds' hot start, it is important to highlight not only how good he has been thus far, but how much he has improved. The following table compares his core stats thus far in 2009 (as of 6/14) to his 2008 totals:
The difference in average obviously sticks out, and he has already surpassed his stolen base total from all of last year, but Reynolds is on pace for drastic improvement in every other category, as well. If Reynolds finishes 2009 with the same number of ABs he had last year (539) and maintains his current pace, he will end up with 40 HR, 98 runs, 105 RBI and 30 steals. Who knew that I should've included Reynolds in the discussion of my 40/40 club article over at 3-D Baseball? That is a fabulous line if he can maintain it. The question then becomes: does Mark Reynolds have a chance to keep this pace up? Some Positive Indicators Surprisingly, Reynolds has a healthy amount of peripheral stats to back up his case of fantasy studliness. For starters, his current ISO of .294 is up substantially from 2008's mark of .219, and his wOBA has seen a similar increase from .340 in '08 to .412 in '09. What could be the most promising sign for Reynolds, though, is an improved plate discipline. He has drawn walks at a better rate (11.8% in '09 vs. 10.6% in '08), and he has demonstrated better control over his bat. His overall swing percentage is down three percent to 43.8%, while his swing percentage on pitches out of the zone has dipped 1.8% to 22.2%. As I will discuss later in the article, this doesn't mean that his strikeouts are down, but he is at least showing some steps in the right direction here. A couple of major reasons for Reynolds' success this year are his lofty BABIP and HR/FB% numbers. His BABIP of .384 is currently the fourth-highest mark in all of baseball this year. Whether or not this clip is the result of luck is somewhat debatable. On one hand, this sort of rate is not unprecedented for Reynolds, as he posted a BABIP of .386 in 2007 over 366 AB's. On the other hand, Reynolds' distribution of balls hit in play is not exactly conducive to this high success rate, as only 14.9% of his batted balls are going for line drives. Then again, having a HR/FB% of 27.4% means that a lot of the fly balls he has hit have not turned into can-of-corn outs. It also means that his home run totals have gotten quite a boost from this inflated rate, which is currently third best in baseball. The sustainability of this rate is also debatable (I will present the other side of it a little later), but with a career rate of 19.3%, it seems unlikely that Reynolds will be able to maintain this kind of level. Some Negative Indicators I suppose I could have included the latter two rates in this category due to their potential negative future outlook, but they are at least signs of why Reynolds has produced so well thus far. One thing that has certainly not helped Reynolds - and probably never will - has been his contact rates. His mark of 61.9% in 2009 is the second-worst contact rate this year, behind only Chris Davis. Not only that, but Reynolds' contact rate has declined in each of the past two seasons, which negates much of the positive effect that his improving plate discipline has had. As a result, he is striking out 38.5% of the time this year, which is higher than his career average of 37.1%. One thing that struck me as a possible explanation for Reynolds' decreasing contact abilities is the way that pitchers have decided to pitch him. Basically, they have learned to throw him less fastballs and more sliders. Reynolds has gotten a healthy diet of sliders this year, as they account for 26.1% of the pitches he has seen. Only Ivan Rodriguez, Hunter Pence, Ryan Howard and Dan Uggla have seen a great portion of sliders in 2009. Furthermore, this is a much higher rate of sliders than what Reynolds is used to, as it is nearly four percent more than what he saw in 2008. If he cannot improve his ability to hit the slider (or at least his ability to lay off it), pitchers might find it much easier to pitch to Reynolds in the future. Overall Outlook We are cautiously optimistic about Reynolds' future outlook. It is impossible to ignore that contact rate, but enough of the rest of his game is coming around well enough to compensate for that. He is unlikely to maintain his .280 average, but it will not dip into dangerously low levels, either. His BABIP is inflating his average, but it is not exactly unfathomable that he will be able to keep his BABIP in the mid-to-upper .300's. His run and RBI totals are for real, especially with an improving D'backs offense. They have improved under new manager Hinch, and fellow youngsters like Upton and Drew are starting to come around nicely. Home runs have always been the strength of Reynolds, and he has the ability to become a 40 homer threat. He has been helped thus far by a lofty HR/FB%, but there is a reason it has been so high this year. Reynolds' Average Standard DIstance (ASD) has been phenomenal in 2009 - he is currently averaging 417.5 feet per blast. Only three of his 17 homers have had an ASD of less than 400 feet. Furthermore, Reynolds is reaching all fields with his power. He has already scorched five opposite field home runs, and seven have gone to the deeper left-center part of the park. Reynolds is simply crushing the ball, and these are all very positive signs that his home run prowess this year is no fluke. Oddly enough, Reynolds looks like a legitimate stolen base threat. He is still only 25, so he is the perfect age for his speed potential to blossom. More importantly, though, is the fact that new manager Hinch appears to place a greater emphasis on base running than Melvin did. Hinch has only had the job for a little over a month now, but the D'backs' steals are already up. Only three D'backs had double digit steals last year (Chris Young led the team with 14), but three already have at least nine so far this year. Even looking at the team's splits between the two managers this year shows this change of philosophy. The monthly steals splits break down to 13 in April, 27 in May and 16 so far in June. Melvin was fired May 8. In fact, ten of Reynolds' thirteen steals have come since Hinch took over. While Reynolds may not be a complete five-tool threat, he may not be that far off. He at least has the potential to become the league's next power/speed combo threat, even if he rarely makes contact. He certainly seems to be comfortable with finding ways to succeed in spite of that, though. Trackback(0)
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Tags: Mark Reynolds Chris Davis Ivan Rodriguez Hunter Pence Ryan Howard Dan Uggla Justin Upton Stephen Drew A.J. Hinch Bob Melvin five-tool player
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He still has nothing close to Dunn-like discipline and has yet to develop Dunn's level of power, but his power could get to that point, and despite his reputation, his defensive value is at least better than Dunn's, so he can be a very comparable player with the tradeoff of on-base ability for moderately better defense and maybe a little more baserunning value.