Nolan Reimold and the Infield Single

[Can_of_corn]

I don't think we've had too many hamstring injuries this year. That's odd.

Anyways, Vladdy's gone next year and Luke Scott will likely be non-tendered, so there should be a wide open DH spot for Reimold in 2012.

Not sure that Nolan in Left and Reynolds at DH isn't the lesser of two evils.

[Frobby]

Not sure that Nolan in Left and Reynolds at DH isn't the lesser of two evils.

Me neither. I do think Nolan has been a little better in LF this year compared to 2009-10. My main beef is he has a tendency to freeze on balls hit in front of him. There are a lot of balls he allows to bounce that are catchable if he gets a good first step in towards the ball and commits to going after it.

[DrungoHazewood]

Of course if you look at the numbers you will see Reimold is outproducing Markakis offensively and defensively this season.

By a tiny amount, if you throw out his mediocre 40 games in Norfolk, you ignore the positional differences between left and right field, and assume that Reimold would produce as well playing every day rather than sitting out when Buck didn't think he'd play as well.

[Can_of_corn]

By a tiny amount, if you throw out his mediocre 40 games in Norfolk, you ignore the positional differences between left and right field, and assume that Reimold would produce as well playing every day rather than sitting out when Buck didn't think he'd play as well.

The point I was making is the "Nick and Nolan are the same age" was a lot more telling when Nick was tearing it up in MLB and Nolan was in AA. This season they are the same age and are producing similarly.

[Say O!]

He is very good at instinctual things like running hard out of the box and not so good at things that require some amount of brainpower like stealing and adjusting to the ball in the air. This isn't surprising based on what I know about him. I think he is a real good guy who wants to be the best he can be, but he isn't extremely bright from what I have learned about him and observed. He does seem to be learning how to steal IMO.

I like the guy and hope he is able to produce enough to stay around. I think he has thus far this year.

Let's be careful in equating intelligence and baseball intelligence. There are plenty of "dumb" ballplayers that had phenomenal instincts, particularly baserunning.

Nolan has tremendous athletic ability. But his baseball instincts are not as strong for whatever reason. Maybe he will continue to grow in that regard. Because of that athletic ability, he's a guy whom I would hold onto and hope that his instincts mature and develop down the road. Quite the same with Adam Jones as well.

[Lucky Jim]

I knew people kept crazy baseball stats (some quite useless), but this is perhaps the craziest. Does anyone know how this is calculated? Clearly a stopwatch, but more particularly, is the ranking based on the AVERAGE time from home to first over the season? Or, is the ranking based on a player's FASTEST time from home to first during the season?

I'm awestruck in thinking someone times every player from home to first EVERY AT BAT during a season to get this number.

I thought I had heard it all!

I think Dempsey counts Mississippi at each game.

[olehippi]

Its great that he hustles, but I don't want a guy who gets as many IF hits as Ichircho and can't hit for average, or play amazing D. Nolan needs to hit for power.

Remove the blinders....Reimold has both the foot speed to beat out infield hits and can hit for power. If you extrapolate Reimold's current stats out to give him 600 or so AB's, you'll see about 28 HR's and 90+ RBI's. As for the BA, play him a a regular and IMO he'll be a .270+ hitter. I'll take that in a full time left fielder.

[Dipper9]

Remove the blinders....Reimold has both the foot speed to beat out infield hits and can hit for power. If you extrapolate Reimold's current stats out to give him 600 or so AB's, you'll see about 28 HR's and 90+ RBI's. As for the BA, play him a a regular and IMO he'll be a .270+ hitter. I'll take that in a full time left fielder.

:agree:

Of course, my wife says I have a weird man crush on him, so there's always that.

[Sanfran327]

:agree:

Of course, my wife says I have a weird man crush on him, so there's always that.

I don't get the anti-Reimold crowd, either. I agree that our LF doesn't make it as easy to hide a bad fielder as the LF in Boston, but Reimold isn't exactly a trainwreck out there. He's learning, and maybe a little slowly, but his bat still plays there. It's unfortunate that our LF might be one of the more difficult ones in the division.

[El Gordo]

Correct, second fastest time of any RH hitter. That's pretty impressive, and yes, it leads to a lot of infield hits. You have to hand it to Reimold that he has a good eye, good power and can get to 1B in a hurry.

Where do you find these numbers?

[El Gordo]

I don't get the anti-Reimold crowd, either. I agree that our LF doesn't make it as easy to hide a bad fielder as the LF in Boston, but Reimold isn't exactly a trainwreck out there. He's learning, and maybe a little slowly, but his bat still plays there. It's unfortunate that our LF might be one of the more difficult ones in the division.

Personally I would prefer Beltran, Jones, and Crisp in LF, in that order over Reimold.

[Sanfran327]

Personally I would prefer Beltran, Jones, and Crisp in LF, in that order over Reimold.

I probably would too, but none of them are going to give you any kind of return on the investment compared to Reimold.

[Dipper9]

I probably would too, but none of them are going to give you any kind of return on the investment compared to Reimold.

I'd take Reimold over Beltran or Crisp, especially when taking into account the salary.

[Sanfran327]

I'd take Reimold over Beltran or Crisp, especially when taking into account the salary.

Right. I don't think that any one expects 5x the production from a player that costs 5x more than another, but I'd be interested to see a formula that might shed some light on the exponential increase in salary as it's associated with producitivity.

EDIT: I realize that that's basically WAR, but I'd be interested to see someone apply it to a player's statistics.

[El Gordo]

I probably would too, but none of them are going to give you any kind of return on the investment compared to Reimold.

Yes, but Reimold isn't giving you a 3-5 WAR LF either. You have to pay to play. Jones will cost you about 5M. and give you the 3 WAR or 2.7 x his cost in production. Reimold wil give you 1.7 WAR at about .5 K or 17 x his cost in production. So yeah, we should be trading Reimold for all that SP we need, not Jones. Teams will be knocking the warehouse door down for him.