Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Continuing our player spotlight feature as we head to the season, Al Reyes is next up on the docket.
To review, so far we’ve done: Akinori Iwamura, B.J. Upton, Cliff Floyd, and Carlos Pena.
2007: Probably the best way to describe Al Reyes’ 2007 season was that he was the guy in the bullpen who didn’t suck. By no means was he great (4.90 ERA, 13 HR allowed), but he wasn’t awful either (1.15 WHIP, 1.15 K/IP, 4 blown saves). We all spent many a night wishing Al Reyes could throw every bullpen inning, saving us from the horror of Brian Stokes, Shawn Camp, Jae-Kuk Ryu, or a host of other less-than-impressive big league arms.
He missed two weeks in early July with a rotator cuff strain, leaving guys like Jay Witasick and Gary Glover trying to close out games, and when he came back, he didn’t quite seem like the same pitcher. His fastball didn’t have as much bite; those close pitches were drifting a little bit more on him. 3 of the blown saves came after the injury. Getting tattooed by the Red Sox a few times didn’t help him, either.
If nothing else, we all loved watching him trot out of the bullpen because he looks like a cage fighter getting ready to rip someone’s face off. I like that.
2008: In a way, Reyes is getting “demoted” to set-up man in ‘08 with the arrival of Troy Percival, but he says that he doesn’t look at it that way; instead, this is just a collaborative team bullpen effort and he is just one of the parts. At his age - 37 in about 6 weeks - that’s probably the best way to look at it. He was never going to be an elite closer, but Percival was at one point and is the most logical person to take that spot.
As long as everyone’s healthy, this move should sure up the bullpen nicely in the late innings. Still, his HR rate from last year (13 in 60 innings) is still worrisome; you can’t give up that many home runs and not feel it. On the bright side, that number was an aberration from him and if he regresses back to his mean, then the number should drop to only 6 or 7 this coming season.
If the Rays find themselves out of contention in July, don’t be surprised if they look to move Reyes for some kind of prospect. With his age, he’s likely not in the long-term plans of the team, but if he’s throwing well, he could definitely help a team like the Braves or the Dodgers or whichever other club is contending for a playoff spot. On the other hand, if the Rays are in it, Reyes will likely be an important component of that.
Best-case scenario: Reyes is the bridge to Percival, and does it with ease. Something to the effect of 65 games, 70 innings, and an ERA in the low-2s. No injury worries would help make it even better.
Worst-case scenario: He’s had a history of various arm ailments. In any given year they could dog him; it’s always possible that he could miss the majority of the season because of something like that. Like someone said (I think it was either Wolfson or Cork, but I can’t remember): he’s a lot closer to his last pitch than he is to his first.
Did You Know? Reyes has started 2 games in his career, both in 2004 and both as part of Tony LaRussa’s bullpen-by-committee games where he lets a reliever start and go 2 or 3 innings before handing the baton to someone else.
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