Mark Reynolds automatically brings 200 strikeouts to many fantasy owners mind and is largely going very late in fantasy leagues. In the Battle of the Fantasy Gods draft I took him in the 17th round, and that was considered a bit early right now. I strongly disagree and think that, based on his dismissal by many experts this year, Reynolds may be a candidate for the best value based on draft position. If your league counts strikeouts as a hitting category, please ignore everything I am about to say, though.
Minor Leagues
Mark Reynolds has immense power potential and displayed it right away with 23 homers in only 273 ABs in high A ball in 2006. He also hit 8 more in AA ball that year for 31 homers in 387 ABs. That projects out to 44 homers in 550 ABs. You can see right away why Arizona was so quick to move him from AA to the majors in 2007.
Major Leagues
Mark Reynolds had a great start in 2007 with 17 homers in 366 major league at bats and a .279 average, but many called for a regression based on a .386 BABIP. That regression happened in 2008, and Reynolds smacked 28 homers but had a .239 average. He also fell to an OBP of .320, which makes him a fringe player even with 30 homers.
The good news is once you look inside Reynolds stats, you see an ability at every level to maintain an elevated BABIP, and 2007 and 2008 seem to be on the far ends of what he can do. Most projections for 2009 call for a BABIP of .336-.345, which would bring his average back above .250. I think this is just a start for him, as he never fully seasoned his hitting skills by skipping AAA and is still learning to hit at the major leagues.
Bill James is very bullish as well on Reynolds this year, as his fantasy line looks like this: .269 BA, 32 HR, 101 R, 105 RBI, 10 SB. Let's compare that to Bill James's Evan Longoria projection: .280 BA, 37 HR, 102 R, 116 RBI, 9 SB. I'll remind you that Longoria is currently moving into the beginning of the second round, and Reynolds can be had near the 20th round in many drafts.
Final Analysis
If you have to fill a CI position, I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be looking at Reynolds this late. He has a better chance to stay healthy than Troy Glaus, who goes several rounds before him, and Reynolds can probably outproduce Glaus even if Glaus is healthy.
Reynolds gets a lot of disrespect for his Ks, but he finished 4th in homers, 5th in runs, 7th in RBI's and 4th in SB's among third basemen in 2008. With an improvement in average, you would have a top 5 third baseman for a 17th-20th round pick.
2009 Roto Savants Sleepers
2 comments:
Another case of holding Ks against one guy (Reynolds, Dunn), but not against another (Howard).
I heartily agree that he's a sleeper. My only concern is his contact percentage, which is REALLY low. It's not just his eye, it's his whiffing on balls he swings at. If he can solve this, he'll be a monster power hitter.
I didn't realize that he'd completely skipped AAA, which helps explain why his AVG is so low. He's still adjusting and growing, so I see his AVG and ct% rising, eliminating Ks and raising his overall value.
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