Mark Reynolds vs. Garrett Atkins

[SrMeowMeow]

You keep wanting to talk about Reynolds. My point is a .780 OPS 3B is better than league average. You bring up Reynolds' 2008 season to disprove that. Well of course if you want to look at a 3B with a -11 UZR/150 he is likely to have a below average WAR. But if you have a .780 OPS 3B with a 2.5 UZR/150, what do you suppose his WAR would be? How about a league average UZR/150 and a .780 OPS?

You're just incompetent. You said that any 3B with a 780 OPS would be above average. I proved you wrong. The best guess we have at Reynolds's defense is his career line: -7 runs. And this whole stupid argument exists because you were busting my chops about saying that I couldn't get excited about Reynolds potentially putting up a 780 OPS this season.

Every argument you've made has been wrong. Just go away.

[Bradysburns]

Its not scary once you realize that it is a terrible comparison.

SG, I suspect you have some actual insight to offer here - I wish you would, instead of just skewering the OP with various adjectives.

[Bradysburns]

Thinking with your head means not reacting to what, like 100 PA?

I'm not just looking at this season, Meowsers. I'm looking at last season, as well. And yes, I get that he hit a lot of homers. But I'm just wondering if we really meant it when we said: Sure, give me a .198 batting average and 30 homers for $5 million, baby! I'm wondering if we really would be happy with that level of production, and his hit-or-miss defense, for the next couple years? Some might say yes. I would say no.

[El Gordo]

You're just incompetent. You said that any 3B with a 780 OPS would be above average. I proved you wrong. The best guess we have at Reynolds's defense is his career line: -7 runs. And this whole stupid argument exists because you were busting my chops about saying that I couldn't get excited about Reynolds potentially putting up a 780 OPS this season.

Every argument you've made has been wrong. Just go away.

Oh I get it, you want to change the argument and add defense to the issue. Simple fact: a .780 OPS is better than league average for a 3B in 2010, in terms of offense. Now if you want to add in defense, then a 0 UZR/150 with .780 OPS for 3B is still above average in 2010. Reynolds since you keep bringing him up, has been trending upward with his defense over the past 3 years. Last year he was a 2.5 UZR/150. If you want to make specious argugments, I suppose you can ignore this and assume he will always be at his career average, but IMO just watching him play this season I have to think hwe is a bit better than average with the glove.

[SrMeowMeow]

Oh I get it, you want to change the argument and add defense to the issue. Simple fact: a .780 OPS is better than league average for a 3B in 2010, in terms of offense. Now if you want to add in defense, then a 0 UZR/150 with .780 OPS for 3B is still above average in 2010. Reynolds since you keep bringing him up, has been trending upward with his defense over the past 3 years. Last year he was a 2.5 UZR/150. If you want to make specious argugments, I suppose you can ignore this and assume he will always be at his career average, but IMO just watching him play this season I have to think hwe is a bit better than average with the glove.

Change the argument? We were talking about Reynolds when you decided to stick your pedantic nose in. A 780 OPS coming from Reynolds (a 3B, a traditionally high offense position, and a mediocre-to-poor defender) is not exciting. You said you'd be happy with a 780 OPS and 35 HR. I explained that he's done that twice and hovered around 2 WAR, which is, of course, average.

And (not that you know, care, or will remember) but UZR takes more than a full season of data to give a good sense of a player's true talent, so career UZR/150 is a better predictor than just the last season. How is that specious? It's factual.

Anyway, you are 100% not worth arguing with. You contribute nothing besides your joy at hearing yourself blather on. Hopefully you take your word bloat and pretentious vocabulary elsewhere...or at least to another thread.

[Jersey O's fan]

I'm really worried that all the strikeout numbers have gotten in his head. The guy had a 40hr/20sb season and all the casual baseball fan would know is about how much he stikes out. I mean this guy was on places that never even talk about baseball all because of how many times he was striking out.

I think he made a decision not to strikeout as much last year' date=' and he hasn't been the same since. Give me back the .220 40hr guy who strikes out 200+. Right now he's on pace to only K 160 times.

It actually made me happy the other day when he struck out 3 times. That's his game.

Here's an article I came across that shows that he did change his approach. People like to say it was about the injuries last year and it wasn't.

[url']http://www.azcentral.com/sports/diamondbacks/articles/2010/09/15/20100915arizona-diamondbacks-notes-reynolds.html[/url]

Yahoo must have done a follow up on my post.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Mark-Reynolds-8217-big-drop-in-Ks-might-not-be?urn=mlb-wp5555

[JDubs]

That's a little strong.

Agreed. You don't have to like someone to coexist with them on the internets.

[Jersey O's fan]

Can you guys stay on topic? Why does he suck this year. By the way,El Gordo is right a 3b who has a .780 ops and hits 35 hrs is better than avg. I thought everybody knew by now that UZR is a joke. They have probally the best SS in the game right now-A. Escobar- with a negative UZR. An absoulute joke.

But why does Reynolds suck this year? Because he's trying not to strikeout. Read above links I posted.

[El Gordo]

Can you guys stay on topic? Why does he suck this year. By the El Gordo is right a 3b who has a .780 ops and hits 35 hrs is better than avg. I thought everybody knew by know that UZR is a joke. They have probally the best SS in the game right now-A. Escobar- with a negative UZR. An absoulute joke.

But why does Reynolds suck this year? Because he's trying not to strikeout. Read above links I posted.

I looked at Reynolds career numbers and with 2 strikes he struck out over 600 times with a total of 19 HR. So you would think that shortening his swing on 2 strikes would help. I don't see hpw it could effect his swing when the count is less than 2 strikes. I'm not sure there is much of a trend here yet, I would want to see how things look after 200 PA.

[Bradysburns]

Can you guys stay on topic? Why does he suck this year. By the way' date='El Gordo is right a 3b who has a .780 ops and hits 35 hrs is better than avg. I thought everybody knew by now that UZR is a joke. They have probally the best SS in the game right now-A. Escobar- with a negative UZR. An absoulute joke.

But why does Reynolds suck this year? Because he's trying not to strikeout. Read above links I posted.[/quote']

Interesting post(s) - the Yahoo piece was probably one of the most insightful I have read on Reynolds. He cited the BABIP being so low this year - it was low last year, also, I think. You would think he's due for a serious bump in batting average over the course of this long season, based on that.

I tend to agree with the Yahoo! guy on some level. If Mark's going to hit .198, he might as well just helicopter on every pitch and give us some more homers. Even if he grazes one, it might go yard. From what I've seen, he's got ridiculous bat speed - it's just not hitting much at this point.

Again, I am rooting for the guy - and he's not as atrocious as Atkins, to be sure. I just want him to put even more distance between his game and "that other guy." He's an Oriole for cryingoutloud - so I'm rooting for him.

BTW - I don't think there's consensus that UZR is a joke - although UZR-150 seems to be a lot more volatile and non-predictive.

[Sports Guy]

SG, I suspect you have some actual insight to offer here - I wish you would, instead of just skewering the OP with various adjectives.

I could provide insight but what's the point?

Do I need to provide insight why it would be terrible to compare Rhyne Hughes to Derek Lee?

At some point, common sense just has to take over.

[SrMeowMeow]

Can you guys stay on topic? Why does he suck this year. By the way' date='El Gordo is right a 3b who has a .780 ops and hits 35 hrs is better than avg. I thought everybody knew by now that UZR is a joke. They have probally the best SS in the game right now-A. Escobar- with a negative UZR. An absoulute joke.

But why does Reynolds suck this year? Because he's trying not to strikeout. Read above links I posted.[/quote']

So, you're wrong, as I demonstrated. You don't have to believe single year UZR numbers to understand that a -7 defending 3B with a 780 OPS will probably be an average player.

[SrMeowMeow]

And that strikeouts vs. power article falls into the most basic logical fallacy - assuming that correlation implies causation. Terrible logic.

[Bradysburns]

I could provide insight but what's the point?

Do I need to provide insight why it would be terrible to compare Rhyne Hughes to Derek Lee?

At some point, common sense just has to take over.

Common sense would tell me that there's no value in putting a career minor-leaguer's stats against an outstanding veteran's. But with Reynolds and Atkins, you're talking about two veterans with plenty of track record. And don't forget - Atkins WAS an excellent player for a few years. He put up some good numbers, like Reynolds did (although Reynolds peak season was truly outstanding... even though he did it in a very different environment). They both made the transition from the National League, and from western teams. They have career Major League OPS numbers within 9 points of each other. Your straw-man argument is absurd - but I get it. You just don't want to participate.

[SrMeowMeow]

No, SG is right. It's a very silly comparison.