One of the players I’ve had the most questions about is Arizona 3B Mark Reynolds. Emailer Laurence C. proposed I take a look at him in the Looking to 09 series and here it is. Reynolds has proven his major league power, but his propensity to strikeout is a major concern. So what can we expect in 2009 from Reynols? Home runs? Sure. Strikeouts? Oh yea. AVG? Hmmmmm….
Some seem to think that Reynolds will approach his .279 2007 AVG once again. I have to say, I’m not so optimistic. Reynolds was a .279 minor league hitter. In 2007 he carried his .306 AA AVG in 134 AB’s into a .279 AVG in the bigs. The thing is Reynolds had a BABIP of .365 at AA and .386 in the bigs that season. For a guy who only makes contact about 64% of the time, that’s a high BABIP destined to come down. In 2008 it did come down to .329 and Reynolds hit .239 with 204 K’s. He struck out 75 more times than he got a hit. Just in case you didn’t know, Reynolds 204 K’s was a major league record and came in only 539 AB’s. Imagine what 550-600 AB’s would have brought.
From what I have watched personally from Reynolds I think that he really needs to refine his swing before he can be a consistent major league hitter. Reynolds has one of the longest swings I have seen since the days of Phil Plantier.
There are just too many question marks with Reynolds to think that he will hit .270-280. A major league hitter can not strikeout 204 times without hitting 40+ HR’s and Reynolds is not a 40+ HR guy. HOWEVER, Mark Reynolds has a current ADP of 242 (round 20) so he is well worth a flyer simply based on his power production. As a MI or UTIL player Reynolds can provide power with any progression in AVG as icing on the cake.
Filed under: Looking to 09 | Tagged: Fantasy Baseball, Mark Reynolds
