Jose Reyes Deathwatch

[G-Fafif]

An alert MetsBlog reader dug up a May 2005 declaration from Rob Neyer calling Jose Reyes the worst everyday player in the game and doubting he'd ever be much good.

http://www.metsblog.com/blog/_archives/2006/6/26/2057264.html

Flip side: Buster Olney just declared Reyes the new Rickey Henderson.

Ah, the analysts and experts. So good at explaining that what we just saw is what we just saw.

[Guest Edgy DC]

That's fun, and I certainly recall that, but it looks like Neyer left himself just enough wiggle room.

I sometimes get the idea that he hates talking and writing about the Mets and Yankees, because every negative comment he makes is followed by a dozens of e-mail accusations of bias.

[Guest Hillbilly]

Just goes to show that Baseball Sabermetrics won't always get it right. With Jose we've been hearing about his 'tools' since he was about 17 along with predictions of his can't miss status to superstar future. The sabermetrics are only now beginning to catch on to Jose's performance.

[Gwreck]

G-Fafif wrote: An alert MetsBlog reader dug up a May 2005 declaration from Rob Neyer calling Jose Reyes the worst everyday player in the game and doubting he'd ever be much good.

Neyer gets asked about it in this afternoon's chat:

Hayden (NY, NY): Hey Rob, how about those comments last year that Jose Reyes was one of the worst players in the majors? First off, how could a player leading the league in 2 offensive categories (SB, triples) be considered in that realm, and how does that assesment look now?

Rob Neyer: (5:12 PM ET ) The fixation on that particular tossed-off chat comment continues to amuse me (a year later I still get multiple questions about it, every week). Anyway, at the time I said that, Reyes had a .300 OBP and was making outs at a prodigious rate. Today, of course, he looks like one of the best players in the league. I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about this.

[Guest OlerudOwned]

Gwreck wrote: ="G-Fafif"]An alert MetsBlog reader dug up a May 2005 declaration from Rob Neyer calling Jose Reyes the worst everyday player in the game and doubting he'd ever be much good. Neyer gets asked about it in this afternoon's chat: Hayden (NY, NY): Hey Rob, how about those comments last year that Jose Reyes was one of the worst players in the majors? First off, how could a player leading the league in 2 offensive categories (SB, triples) be considered in that realm, and how does that assesment look now? Rob Neyer: (5:12 PM ET ) The fixation on that particular tossed-off chat comment continues to amuse me (a year later I still get multiple questions about it, every week). Anyway, at the time I said that, Reyes had a .300 OBP and was making outs at a prodigious rate. Today, of course, he looks like one of the best players in the league. I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about this.

The fact that you implied he probably wouldn't become a 'good' player, Robby.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Because

you used

the word

worst.

That's a red flag and he meant it to be one, so don't complain when the bull lands a few.

It's a mistake that far less thinking radio peeps make. You speak in strong terms, you impress people. But some are going to hold you to those terms. I mean, you said something risky --- good for you --- but you accept the consequences if they are in your favor, and you accept the consequences if they ain't.

And yeah, his implication is where he gets the wiggle room.

To bad he's going to keep wiggling instead of eating a few words. He'll be hearing about this all year at this rate.

[metsmarathon]

the neyer quote, which is difficult to actually quibble with, given its date 24 May 05:

]Wright's a fine young player and will only get better, but Reyes is, at the moment, one of the very worst everyday players in the majors. He's still only 21 and will of course improve, but it's far too early to predict that he'll actually become a ‘good’ player…

was may 24th 2005 too early to predict reyes' future as a good player? prolly.

at the time, was reyes actually being very productive? prolly not.

times change, don't they?

[G-Fafif]

Edgy DC wrote: You speak in strong terms, you impress people.

A quarter-century ago, there was a load of hype surrounding a fight between Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard. The radio host Art Rust Jr. (all we had then) kept guaranteeing Hearns would win. There was no question. None. After Leonard won, caller after caller dialed up Rust to remind him of his dead, solid lock. Rust's plaintive response: "I was wrong."

Why more self-proclaimed experts can't toss those three words out now and then is beyond me.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Exactly. And he survived!

Neyer's track record is such that he'd still flourish if he acknowledges he blew that one. In fact, I'd imagine that he's doing more damage to his rep this way.

[nymr83]

]I sometimes get the idea that he hates talking and writing about the Mets and Yankees, because every negative comment he makes is followed by a dozens of e-mail accusations of bias.

i'm pretty sure he has explicitly said as much

] Just goes to show that Baseball Sabermetrics won't always get it right.

nope, they'll just be right a far larger percentage of the time than the "traditionalists" who don't believe in these crazy ideas like mathematics.

Nobody claims to be able to predict everything with 100% accuracy, the goal is merely to improve on previous rates of accuracy in projections.

[metsmarathon]

]the "traditionalists" who don't believe in these crazy ideas like mathematics.

who then use batting average to prove a point. hee.

[dinosaur jesus]

He was wrong that Reyes wouldn't improve, but I think it's been a surprise to most people just how sudden and dramatic that improvement has been. He wasn't wrong about Reyes's performance last year, though he might have overstated his position a little. I'm not sure what there is to gloat about.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]He wasn't wrong about Reyes's performance last year, though he might have overstated his position a little.

So he was a little wrong about that. And more wrong about the likeliness of improvement. He was also wrong about so casually dismissing his defense.

[dinosaur jesus]

I'm delighted he was wrong. I just don't think that what he was saying was completely unreasonable at the time.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, unable to isolate who the regular players were at the exact moment, we had 148 players qualifying for the batting title last year. Jose was 134th. That eliminates the many players who were regulars at the time of Neyer's pronouncement, but were subsequently displaced, but it also allows for Reyes's improvement after the comment.

Now, of those finishing behind, him, some are catchers or shortstops also. Adam Everett and Jack Wilson seem too far behind him to catch him on defense alone, certainly not after his wheels are factored in. Looking at the shortstops closer to him, Orlando Cabrera is .021 ahead of him in range factor, to offset him being at .013 behind in OPS. He didn't pile up the steals, but he went 21-23, so I'm going to say he was at least as good.

Angel Berroa was .006 ahead in range factor, compared to being .007 behind in OPS. He gets waxed on the baserunning factor, though. Neifi Perez was a top fielder, so he gets to jump ahead, wheels or no.

So that leaves him at 135th or 136th out of 148. But there's also a half dozen or so guys above him in OPS that his defense and wheels on face value makes him better than --- Bernie Williams, Scott Posednik, Shannon Stewart, Lew Ford. So at the end of the season, he was about 130th of 148 guys that survived the year, playing good enough, in whatever situation they were in, to stay in the lineup and qualify for the batting title. That's certainly not good. But it's no lost cause. Carlos Beltran, for example, was 112th, and he's one of the top players in the league this year. So you have that modest performance, plus the guy being 21, you'd think that he's a better bet than Neyer seemed to think. Eyeball his bat speed once or twice and you think even more so. That's all.

Now, after all that crap, I happily confess that I have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. 20/15 even.

[Elster88]

]Wright's a fine young player and will only get better, but Reyes is, at the moment, one of the very worst everyday players in the majors. He's still only 21 and will of course improve, but it's far too early to predict that he'll actually become a ‘good’ player…

I'll confess. I don't see anything wrong with this statement. Everything in it looks true to me.

[metirish]

From "OilCanShotTupac" on the SoSH KTE ...

] If you haven't seen the Mets this year, you have missed out on some exciting baseball. David Wright is tremendous - but in terms of sheer excitement, he pales in comparison to Jose Reyes. Reyes has poor plate discipline, but has surprising power and can FLY. If you haven't seen him, it's difficult to describe just how aggressive he is on the basepaths. He truly attacks the opposition.

[Guest Hillbilly]

Elster88 wrote: ]Wright's a fine young player and will only get better, but Reyes is, at the moment, one of the very worst everyday players in the majors. He's still only 21 and will of course improve, but it's far too early to predict that he'll actually become a ‘good’ player… I'll confess. I don't see anything wrong with this statement. Everything in it looks true to me.

The interesting thing is that most people that watched him play have been saying he'd likely be great player for years.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Hence this "deathwatch".

[Frayed Knot]

Some stuff from Baseball Prospectus
on the Mets in general and Reyes in particular - including some stuff we
were talking about the other day (I think in one of the IGTs):

Two-time reigning NL Player of the Week Jose Reyes has been otherworldly for the past couple of weeks. After missing two games on June 6th and 7th with wrist discomfort, Reyes came back and hit his generic .286/.333/.429 over three games. The following game, he went 0-3, but drew three walks, which is quite astounding given his well-documented lack of plate discipline. Till that point, in 356 career games, Reyes had drawn three walks in a game once (earlier this year no less) and two walks in a single game just four times.
He drew three more walks (two intentional) the next game, but also supported that on-base effort with a single and a double in three at bats. That game set Reyes off on an amazing 13-game stretch (just snapped) in which he amassed 32 hits (13 for extra bases) in 57 at-bats for a.561/.583/.912 line while scoring 19 runs.

Reyes still hasn’t drawn a walk since that hat trick game, but it’s hard to criticize him for not getting on base via four balls when he’s smoking the strikes to the tune of .561. Besides, walks aren’t the goal anyway--they’re the byproduct of a good hitting approach. To wit, at the beginning of the season, Reyes was noticeably looking to take walks, which he attempted to make happen by robotically taking pitches. On the surface, that had the look of progress. However, the point isn’t to just take pitches, it’s to take (and subsequently swing at) the right pitches.

Reyes’ deliberate attempts to coerce bases on balls often worked against him, as he took a lot of hittable pitches and later in counts remained just as over-anxious and willing to chase a bad pitch as ever. However, as a phenomenal athlete with extremely fast wrists and hips and excellent eye-hand coordination, Reyes has never needed to anticipate pitches, whatever the count may be. His anxiety also tended to make him pull off a lot of pitches, and so he fouled off many hittable pitches. His problems were also compounded by some bad luck on balls in play as he stroked a number of liners right at fielders. His BABIP of .264 before the streak was significantly below his career mark of .306.

Contrast his early-season approach to his more recent approach. In this admittedly short stint, Reyes isn’t just deciding in advance whether to swing or not. He’ll still rip at a hittable pitch early in the count, but he’s laying off pitches just out of the zone or even right on the edges. He seems much more comfortable in his ability to wait for a better pitch, which he’s getting and lacing. Later in the count, he trusts his quickness and eye, staying back just a tad more and avoiding chasing terrible pitches.

Reyes has been in the league for four years, so it’s easy to forget that he’s still just 23 and capable of further, equally significant improvement. This is especially true since he was rushed and injured; in the meantime, fans waited impatiently for stardom and analysts continually questioned his placement in the lineup. With all the talk of unachieved potential, it’s easy to overlook Reyes’ steady, if slow, improvement over those years. He’s tightened up his defense considerably and his leg injuries, which were verging on chronic and threatened to end his career, are well behind him. Now, he seems to be whittling away his last major weakness.

Clearly, Reyes isn’t going to going to continue to hit .500, or .400 for that matter. But the longstanding hopes of .300+ with 70 walks a year and some decent pop all of a sudden might even be conservative.

[Elster88]

Edit: Never mind.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'll say this, the Mets sure cooled off when he cooled off.

[soupcan]

Edgy DC wrote: I'll say this, the Mets sure cooled off when he cooled off.

Wright too.

[Elster88]

Which makes sense. That's our leadoff guy and our MVP.

Combine that with the recent weaker starting pitching, and it makes sense that we've been a .500 team over the past two weeks or so.

[Guest Edgy DC]

When table setters don't get on, RBI-men get fewer good pitches.

[soupcan]

True dat.

[Elster88]

.300/.357/.481//.838

32 BB - Projects to 58.25

[Guest Hillbilly]

Edgy DC wrote: When table setters don't get on, RBI-men get fewer good pitches.

Just one of probaly thousands unmeasured co-variates not captured by baseball stats.

[Guest Edgy DC]

It's something of a truism, but there is some supporting data out there which I'll try to find.

[Guest Hillbilly]

I think that you've missed my point. Recent advances in baseball stats have created a neo-geek baseball fan that acts if modern statistical analyses are flawless, as opposed to being an incremental improvement (my view) . I’ve been beating a drum beat that baseball has an incredible number of variables, that all can potentially interact, that will limit what information you get from the exercise.

What kind of pitches Wright gets with or without Reyes dancing off of first is just one example. Please recall that recent sabermetric analyses have devalued the stolen base, but the techniques that lead to that conclusion are unable to address what kind of pitches Wright gets with or without Reyes dancing off of first.

That's my point. But if your IQ is contained within your forum name you'll probably conclude that I don't believe in mathematics.