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Jose Reyes and the Triple Crown

Photo by Michael Baron

A player like Jose Reyes will never win a Triple Crown, he’s not a slugger and right now doesn’t bat in a part of the lineup with a lot of RBI opportunities.  We count the success of players like Reyes with runs scored and stolen bases over home runs and RBIs.

So how does Jose Reyes stack up in the Leadoff Hitters Triple Crown as of 6:00pm on Sunday when I’m writing this?  He leads the National League in average at .346.  He’s currently 2nd in runs, one off the lead held by Drew Stubbs and Ryan Braun at 48.  He’s second in stolen bases, six behind Michael Bourn of the Astros who has 26.

The season is a little over a third over, so there is still a lot of time left.  Still, Reyes certainly looks like a solid candidate for my newly created Leadoff Triple Crown.  He’s leading in hitting right now, although Joey Votto is only .007 behind him and having an unbelievable season as well.  He’s currently got a .466 OBP.  He’s on base more than 9 times out of 20.

Reyes is only one run scored off the lead, which is doubly impressive when you consider Stubbs has Votto behind him driving him in and Braun has Prince Fielder.  Reyes has had to deal with injuries to Ike Davis and David Wright, and has often had Jason Bay, who’s not hitting at all, batting cleanup.

Michael Bourn is leading Jose in stolen bases.  Bourn has been the leader in each of the last two seasons while Jose was dealing with the injury in 2009 and the lack of a Spring Training in 2010.  So far this season he’s playing decently above his career average, and perhaps will tail off in stolen bases opportunities and allow Jose to pass him.  Or maybe Jose starts stealing more.

Yes, Jose Reyes is having a monster year. He’s easily one of the most exciting players in baseball and the best shortstop in the league.  Ultimately the Mets are going to have to work out an extension with him and resign him, but in the mean time we’re getting to enjoy one of the best seasons we’ve ever seen from a Mets position player.  Getting to the tv for first pitch when the Mets are on the road is a necessity, because if you’re late you may miss Reyes doing something amazin’.

The 7 train sometimes makes local stops, but Jose Reyes is always express.

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Jose’s Last Laugh

From 040909_Pirates


Jose Reyes got the last laugh last night. It’s presumed by many that he was benched for admiring his long double on Wednesday afternoon, but he managed to get his hand, or feet, into the game anyway. He passed off his base stealing abilities to David and the team, so they could combine for seven stolen bases; four of them by his buddy on the left side of the infield. It did appear that he forgot to give his defense to Alex Cora, but it worked out in the end.

This time it was Beltran hitting a double in the final inning, and he promptly stole third. Reyes’ base stealing ability was obviously pointing out how it would’ve made more sense Wednesday to let Reyes have the opportunity to swipe third, rather than have Castillo bunt him over. Castillo had a key sac-fly on Tuesday, so why not another?

Reyes’ base stealing ability even got Gary Sheffield to steal a base last night. It didn’t matter what Molina did behind the plate, Reyes’ ability made everyone faster than Molina could throw, and may have even slowed down the third base ump’s eyes.

Kidding aside, it wasn’t Reyes’ base stealing ability that won last night’s game; It was Wright’s leadership. Wright recognizes what this team needs to do to win. Granted, he’s not always able to succeed, but baseball is more failure than success, and that doesn’t make him a bad leader. He realized with Reyes out, the way to win the game wasn’t to change the team dynamic with Sheffield and trying to become a power team and hit home runs, but to fill in for Reyes and become the fast, aggressive team that they are when he’s on. He’s done it before. In 2006 when Beltran and Delgado were blasting everything out of the park, Wright contributed by driving them in whenever possible to a career high and team leading 116. In 2007 when Delgado was struggling, Wright switched gears and stole a lot of bases to help Reyes and others set a franchise record for the season and scored nearly 20 more runs. David Wright may occasionally not come through, may press too hard at times, may try to appease too many people, but when it comes down to it David Wright is a winning ballplayer, and a leader on this team.

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Fresh Ideas

The players are the players. Fundamentals are the result of practice and training. Look at how much better Jose Reyes has gotten at shortstop over the years. To me, this is on the coaches. They don’t seem to be doing proper base running drills, or proper training in general. Perez is what he is, but you know he has talent. It’s on the coaches to bring out that talent.

Between clutch hitting, stolen bases, good defense, and good pitching, this team has shown it all at times. These players have all show they’re capable of it. And you can’t fire the players. It’s time for a real change in management. Sometimes when you’re too close to the problem, you can’t see what needs to be done. It’s time for Howard Johnson, and Jerry Manuel, and probably Dan Warthen too, to get lost. I want some outside influence on this team. Some fresh ideas.

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Aggressive? Or Timid?

I’m not ready to jump off a ledge yet. Yes, we haven’t gotten many hits with runners in scoring position, but it is a small sample, and it is April. We’ve gotten a lot of guys on base.(Our on base percentage with runners on is a little better.) Sometimes we stage two out rallies where a guy or two gets a hit, and often guys like that get stranded. I’m not as worried about the number of guys left on, because you do get things like that when a team gets a lot of hits and never gives up even with two outs. Creating opportunities to score is the first part to having big games.
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Still, this team doesn’t feel right. Supposedly Manuel is preaching aggression, but I don’t see it. Other than trying to make Castillo swing at more pitches, I’d say this team is timid. Also, wasn’t the big plus with Dan Warthen and Oliver Perez is that he let Ollie be Ollie? Why is this not okay with Castillo? I worry that trying to make him into a hitter that he isn’t, could hurt. He’s been a successful player in his career, why mess with that? The Mets have way too little stolen base attempts for a team that is supposedly aggressive.

The Mets are on pace for 122 stolen base attempts, compared with 174 last year. Before that is was 246, 181, and 193 in 2005. This team is a team that’s always used it’s running game to it’s advantage. When was the last time you saw Reyes dancing off third trying to entice a balk? Putting the runners in motion, like yesterday with Omir Santos up, is not what I’d call aggression. It’s almost defeatist. Manuel seems to manage like he expects failure. He doesn’t think Santos, even though he’s two for three, or Reed as a pinch hitter are going to come through, so he tries to manufacture something. The same way he does when he goes matchup happy and starts pinch hitting for Church or Castro/Santos. Church has shown some ability to hit lefties, but if you keep taking him out against lefties, he’s going to have less practice at it, and you’ll start putting ideas in his head about failure. I brought up a similar thing about Feliciano. If you never let him pitch to righties, how is he supposed to figure out how to get them out? It’s not like he wasn’t a big pitcher for us in years past, so what happened? Actually, the data doesn’t look that horrible for Feliciano’s splits, and it also looks like that he pitches against as many righties and lefties. So if he’s really supposed to be a lefty specialist, he’s being used wrong.

Then again, the Mets won two of three. They dropped the ball on the third game, but you can’t actually win them all. (I’m assuming they can win 156 however) Beat the Cardinals, Beat the Nationals and maybe we can start putting this small sample size problems behind us.

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Ceetar’s Ready To Watch the Mets Again

When the Mets start there game tonight after the break, Rickey Henderson will be the new hitting coach. I like Rickey, despite all his baggage. I thought Rick Down was a good coach, but I’m not going to be upset over the switch of someone I almost never see save for an occasionally spot with the SNY guys.

I think this can only be good. Rick Down certainly wasn’t the reason the Mets hit last year, they hit because they are good players. There’s always more Reyes can learn about base stealing from Rickey, and I’m sure so can Beltran and Wright. It’s just a shame Gomez is injured and will have to wait for those lessons. Rickey is also a superb hitter, and at the very least I’m sure he can lend some insight to some of the struggling bats.

I think the Mets are going to start hitting again anyway, but this move will basically give Rickey the credit. In general the Mets have had a rather lackluster first half. It had it’s moments, but it certainly wasn’t great. Now is the time to push towards the playoffs, get some distance in the division, rediscover that offensive stroke and fine tune the team. Pedro looks like he’ll be back, Alou supposedly will be back. Endy will be back. Maybe the Mets make some changes here and there, bench and bullpen and get better. They’re only looking at a pace to win about 91 games, but I think they’ll have a good enough second half to win at least 95.

Lastings Milledge will by all accounts be back with the Mets, hopefully over Ledee, tonight. It’s been almost a year since he’s had any real major league experience, and I expect that this time he’ll have more success. I kind of like the guy, he’s got some personality and excitement.

The Home Run Derby and All-Star Game are fun in their own ways, but I’m looking forward to the Mets again tonight. I’ll be at Shea for my 18th and 19th baseball games of the season tomorrow and Saturday for Endy Chavez bobble head night and Ralph Kiner night.

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Back In First

Apr 14, 2007 12:19 AM

Sure they’re technically tied for first, but it’s first nonetheless. I have a feeling this might be the closest any team gets for the rest of the season. The Mets are playing all division games for the next week, and I expect them to heat up with the weather. Expect to see some home runs when the Mets visit Philadelphia on Monday. I would not be surprised if the Mets hit seven in the two days, including two by David Wright.

Enough predictions, I’ll be out at Shea for my third game tomorrow, seeing John Maine pitch again. He had a little bit of control problems on Monday, and with the slightly warmer weather tomorrow, 51degrees, I expect him to have a little better grip. I’m thinking 7-2 Mets. Oops, i thought I was done with predictions.

David Wright swiped his third base of the season last night. He stole 20 last year, and right now is on pace for 48. I doubt he’ll reach that, but with Beltran looking to steal more this year too, you’ve got spots one, three and five in the batting order that look to be pesky and distract the pitchers. I’m sure this was one of the considerations Willie was thinking of when he thought about batting Wright second.

I’d love to see both Reyes and Wright one day be 30-30 players. How awesome would that be?

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Beltran’s First Inning Runs

Feb 21, 2007 02:13 PM

Beltran seems confident this year, and thirsty to improve. It’s good to see a player that had a good year last year still striving for more. He wants to win an MVP, and steal more bases. This will lead to more walks for Delgado, and will put David Wright in the situation to really hurt teams early. The Mets excelled at first inning runs last year, and with Reyes poised to steal at least as many, and probably more, and Beltran looking to eclipse his totals from the last two years in this year alone, the Mets look like they’ll be able to continue the trend of scoring first.

When Reyes and Beltran are on, opposing pitchers are looking at the possibility of having to retire both Delgado and Wright or risk at least two runs. Another bonus, especially on the road, is the effect on the Mets pitchers. Having a lead early is obviously a good thing, and with a lot of the Mets starters being young and inexperienced, this could help them settle in and help win games.