Mark Reynolds isn’t a beast by any means, but he’s no slouch at 6’2″ / 220lbs either. Yet somehow, the 26-year Reynolds has exemplified SMASH-KILL like no other so far in 2009. Arizona’s third baseman has hit 32 HR, and it’s barely August. Not only is he knockin’ ‘em out in numbers, he’s hitting them really fucking far — 26 of Reynolds’ 32 HR have went at least 400′ — Holy Shit.
For someone with a 220 ESPN ADP to open the season, Mark Reynolds has already eclipsed his projected statistics for the year. Reynolds’ 32 HR, and 19 SB puts him only behind Carl Crawford and Albert Pujols on ESPN’s player rater.
Reynolds wasn’t supposed to be this good, not even close. Almost everyone assumed that drafting Mark Reynolds equated to essentially tossing out one (AVG,) and possibly even two (OBP) fantasy baseball categories. No one doubted Reynolds’ power, or even his speed — 30 HR/15 SB was a fairly solid estimation — We just didn’t think he’d post these numbers by the end of July. With that said, you either drafted or picked up Reynolds, or you don’t have him. The asking price on Reynolds has been ridiculous, and trading for him would probably take more balls than I could ever muster.
If you’re lucky enough to have a long winning streak at a high-stakes table, the house will find a way to keep you playing for a long enough time such that the laws of probability will eventually come back and bite you in the ass. The key is to get out while you can, and that’s exactly what you should be doing with Reynolds.
Historically, Reynolds has shown the ability to post high BABIPs over long periods of time but .362 seems like a reach for someone hitting a mere 16% of hits for line-drives. Reynolds’ degree of luck also crosses over to HR/FB percentage as nearly 30% of fly balls are going for home-runs. Reynolds is obviously putting a charge into the baseball, but 29% is almost five points above what you’d expect even the best power hitters to post.
All of this is interesting, but realistically there’s no reason why Reynolds couldn’t outperform the norm in a single season. While Reynolds is likely to regress, there’s also a good chance he’ll continue his lucky ways for another 2 months.
This is where real baseball intersects with fantasy baseball head-on. What should happen and what will happen are two completely different things and obviously with every extra layer of assumption, the margin of error is increased. For some unknown reason, some teams throughout baseball do not employ smart-ass math geeks to root through the numbers and spit out a rudimentary game-plan. When saying “sell-high” on Reynolds, I’m assuming the teams facing the Arizona Diamondbacks will bother to look at the numbers.
Reynolds has established himself as a legitimate power hitter in the MLB, agreed? Well opposing pitchers and managers tend to disagree.
| Name | HR | Zone% | Contact% | O-Swing% | Z-SWing% | Swing% |
| Albert Pujols | 34 | 0.44 | 0.86 | 0.24 | 0.68 | 0.43 |
| Mark Reynolds | 32 | 0.47 | 0.64 | 0.25 | 0.7 | 0.46 |
| Adrian Gonzalez | 28 | 0.45 | 0.75 | 0.23 | 0.7 | 0.44 |
| Justin Morneau | 28 | 0.44 | 0.78 | 0.31 | 0.73 | 0.5 |
| Adam Dunn | 27 | 0.45 | 0.73 | 0.18 | 0.65 | 0.39 |
| Aaron Hill | 26 | 0.51 | 0.84 | 0.29 | 0.74 | 0.52 |
| Carlos Pena | 26 | 0.46 | 0.65 | 0.23 | 0.74 | 0.47 |
| Mark Teixeira | 26 | 0.46 | 0.85 | 0.21 | 0.63 | 0.4 |
| Prince Fielder | 26 | 0.46 | 0.77 | 0.24 | 0.65 | 0.43 |
| Raul Ibanez | 26 | 0.48 | 0.75 | 0.24 | 0.64 | 0.43 |
| Ryan Howard | 26 | 0.45 | 0.66 | 0.28 | 0.77 | 0.5 |
| Nelson Cruz | 25 | 0.47 | 0.68 | 0.26 | 0.75 | 0.49 |
| Jermaine Dye | 24 | 0.49 | 0.83 | 0.23 | 0.62 | 0.42 |
| Russell Branyan | 24 | 0.45 | 0.68 | 0.26 | 0.77 | 0.49 |
| Chase Utley | 23 | 0.46 | 0.83 | 0.19 | 0.57 | 0.37 |
| Ian Kinsler | 23 | 0.49 | 0.86 | 0.25 | 0.72 | 0.48 |
| Kendry Morales | 23 | 0.43 | 0.8 | 0.31 | 0.65 | 0.46 |
| Adam Lind | 22 | 0.47 | 0.83 | 0.27 | 0.64 | 0.44 |
| Andre Ethier | 22 | 0.48 | 0.83 | 0.26 | 0.66 | 0.45 |
| Curtis Granderson | 22 | 0.49 | 0.8 | 0.19 | 0.63 | 0.41 |
| Jayson Werth | 22 | 0.49 | 0.79 | 0.21 | 0.57 | 0.39 |
| Ryan Braun | 22 | 0.49 | 0.8 | 0.29 | 0.58 | 0.43 |
| Brandon Inge | 21 | 0.49 | 0.72 | 0.24 | 0.64 | 0.43 |
| Derrek Lee | 21 | 0.5 | 0.79 | 0.22 | 0.66 | 0.43 |
| Evan Longoria | 21 | 0.49 | 0.75 | 0.27 | 0.65 | 0.45 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 21 | 0.49 | 0.81 | 0.32 | 0.71 | 0.51 |
| Ryan Zimmerman | 21 | 0.5 | 0.82 | 0.23 | 0.6 | 0.41 |
| Hank Blalock | 20 | 0.46 | 0.77 | 0.31 | 0.72 | 0.5 |
| Jason Bay | 20 | 0.48 | 0.74 | 0.2 | 0.63 | 0.41 |
| Justin Upton | 20 | 0.47 | 0.73 | 0.25 | 0.68 | 0.45 |
| Mark DeRosa | 20 | 0.49 | 0.79 | 0.23 | 0.63 | 0.43 |
| Paul Konerko | 20 | 0.49 | 0.83 | 0.24 | 0.64 | 0.44 |
| Troy Tulowitzki | 20 | 0.5 | 0.85 | 0.21 | 0.62 | 0.41 |
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What should stand out is the amount of pitches that Reynolds is getting inside of the zone. Unlike the majority of the other power hitters, Mark Reynolds is getting a fairly sizable amount of strikes. Pitchers have been getting burnt by Aaron Hill as well, and the majority of this article also applies to him. What stands out, to me at least, is that the majority of other hitters that are getting 47-50% of pitches in the zone have at least a moderate amount of line-up protection. Who’s protecting Reynolds, you might ask? Miguel Montero for the most part.
As the playoff races tighten and every game starts to count, teams should start respecting Reynolds’ power much more (the same goes for Hill.) Both Reynolds and Hill are having terrific seasons, but at some point opposing teams will have to start respecting them. It’s fairly clear without even looking at the numbers that Mark Reynolds is timing fastballs and swinging really hard. The numbers back it up of course, with fangraphs’ new pitch value system putting Reynolds at 2.12 FB/C which is as good as it gets.
I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to look at Reynolds splits and realize that off-speed stuff outside of the zone will get his goat, especially now. It’s almost as if Reynolds is starting to get greedy at the plate, and while his O-Swing sits at 24% for the last two years, month-by-month is a different story:
| O-Swing% | Z-SWing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% | F-Strike% | |
| August | 0.27 | 0.67 | 0.48 | 0 | 0.63 | 0.46 | 0.52 | 0.4 |
| July | 0.27 | 0.76 | 0.5 | 0.52 | 0.75 | 0.69 | 0.48 | 0.62 |
| June | 0.3 | 0.75 | 0.49 | 0.41 | 0.77 | 0.64 | 0.43 | 0.65 |
| May | 0.23 | 0.66 | 0.43 | 0.35 | 0.65 | 0.57 | 0.48 | 0.66 |
| Ap/Marc | 0.19 | 0.66 | 0.42 | 0.39 | 0.75 | 0.67 | 0.5 | 0.49 |
(above - Mark Reynolds Splits Through the 2009 Season)
Of course June was Reynolds’ best month, but that’s hardly the point. What’s key here is that Reynolds continues to swing at a steady clip, regardless of where the pitches are.
To close this quicky analysis out, I’ve got to assume that pitchers will start respecting the kid. With respect comes less of the SMASH-KILL. Reynolds will still be a useful fantasy option, but there’s no way he keeps up this torrid pace. I’d personally be surprised if he hit .250 from here on out.
