Mark Reynolds OPS is .731...

[waroriole]

Yeah, but you can't really compare Reynolds' offense to Wieters or Hardy (.656) because they are plus defenders at difficult defensive positions. Frankly, all three need to step it up if the team is going to make a playoff run.

Their poor offense so far is what gives me hope going forward. All 3 are capable of going on 2 month hot streaks, to balance out their seasons. If they can, we have a good shot at the playoffs.

[OFFNY]

Reynolds has factored in heavily in the last two wins. Scored the winning run in the 1-0 game against Tampa, drove in the first run in last night's game while saving a run in the 9th.

Reynolds also made a really nice play on Sunday that might have saved the game. With the score tied 0-0 in the bottom of the 9th, Troy Patton threw the ball very high and very wide on a swinging bunt. Reynolds caught the very errant throw and prevented the runner from advancing to second base ..... with nobody out.

There would have been a HUGE difference if the runner was at second base with nobody out instead of first. The next batter (Sean Rodriguez) sacrifice bunted him over to second. Again, if he had sac-bunted him to 3rd had Reynolds not made that catch, the winning run subsequently would have been 90 feet away with only one out instead of 180 feet away. A sac fly, a wild pitch, or any kind of single would have scored him. Being that he was at second base instead of 3rd, the sac-fly to win the game was out, and a wild pitch would not have scored him, which put considerably less pressure on Luis Ayala in trying to get the final 2 outs of the inning without letting the winning run score.

[Dipper9]

The cutoff was the play of the game.

Billy Ripken was going nuts on MLB Tonight saying what a great play it was! And I think Billy knows a lil something something about infield defense!

[Brendan25]

Billy Ripken was going nuts on MLB Tonight saying what a great play it was! And I think Billy knows a lil something something about infield defense!

John Kruk was saying how great a play it was. It sounded like it was the first time that Kruky had seen it when they were showing the highlights.

[Dipper9]

Their poor offense so far is what gives me hope going forward. All 3 are capable of going on 2 month hot streaks, to balance out their seasons. If they can, we have a good shot at the playoffs.

Jim Hunter made this same point last night. Lets hope you're both right!

[waroriole]

Jim Hunter made this same point last night. Lets hope you're both right!

Ugghh, I feel so unclean right now.

[tennOsfan]

Gotta take my hat off to Reynolds on that cut-off play last night. He killed that rally dead in its tracks with that play.

[clapdiddy]

Ugghh, I feel so unclean right now.

Ugh...maybe you can get some "add-on runs". Easily, my least favorite Hunter-ism.

[LA2]

Buck even said so after the game that you can get an aggressive runner by hitting the cutoff man.

Are you suggesting that Adam should have just tossed it into second? I'm not going to completely disagree with that, but he didn't chuck it into home with no chance of it being cutoff either. He threw it low enough that it could be cutoff.

But in the same interview, Buck said that, ironically, Reynolds getting over *late* to his cut-off position is what enabled it to happen. He was implying that Kawasaki, seeing that there was no cut-off man (yet)--which was a mistake on Reynolds' part--felt free to take second, not expecting that Reynolds wd finally hurry over and cut the throw off.

[Brendan25]

But in the same interview, Buck said that, ironically, Reynolds getting over *late* to his cut-off position is what enabled it to happen. He was implying that Kawasaki, seeing that there was no cut-off man (yet)--which was a mistake on Reynolds' part--felt free to take second, not expecting that Reynolds wd finally hurry over and cut the throw off.

Yes....?

[LA2]

Yes....?

Yes.

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[PaulFolk]

I'd love to see when the vast majority of those "clutch" numbers were put up.

They were put up over the course of six years. Reynolds has a career .852 OPS with RISP.

With RISP and 2 outs' date=' it's even better: .880.

How many different ways do you need to see the stats before you realize that what you're saying is demonstrably, statistically wrong? Reynolds is not a poor hitter in the clutch-- if anything, he's [i']better[/i] in the clutch.

[LookinUp]

I disagree. Jones had no chance at the plate and with a three run lead ,you try to keep the other runner from advancing.

I think you're just wrong on this. As an outfielder you throw the ball to home plate in case something happens (guys stumble). In doing so, you make sure you hit the cutoff man every time to prevent other runners from moving up. There are obviously other scenarios, like if a runner was also on 1B you could throw to 3B (and hit the cutoff man).

In this case, Jones could have thrown straight to second, but that takes away any chance of you getting the guy at home. On this particular play, the runner held at 2B on contact. Jones almost certainly saw that since it happened right in front of him. He still didn't have a great chance to throw him out since the ball was slightly in the gap, but Jones made the perfect play/throw. It's Reynolds' job to get to that spot to cut the ball off. He did that and stopped the runner from advancing to 2B, just like it's designed.

[AgentOrange]

I disagree. Jones had no chance at the plate and with a three run lead ,you try to keep the other runner from advancing.

Reynolds .OPS is now .701. Wieters is .715.

I am going to say that you are wrong here. Jones did exactly what he was supposed to do, Reynolds was late but still made the play. Had Jones overthrew Reynolds, it would have been the wrong play.

[Frobby]

They were put up over the course of six years. Reynolds has a career .852 OPS with RISP.

With RISP and 2 outs, it's even better: .880.

How many different ways do you need to see the stats before you realize that what you're saying is demonstrably, statistically wrong? Reynolds is not a poor hitter in the clutch-- if anything, he's better in the clutch.

Va Beach O's Fan was only talking about 2012, but he is being stymied at every turn. Reynolds' RISP numbers were good, so he said yeah but what about when the game is on the line? Then he was shown that Reynolds has been good in "high leverage" situations, and now he wants to see what they were.

Well, OK, since he insists: here is every at bat Mark Reynolds has had this year, ranked by what the "leverage" was in the situation. ("Leverage" meaning, importance of the opportunity to the possible outcome of the game.) http://www.fangraphs.com/statsp.aspx?playerid=7619&position=3B&season=2012 Go to town.

What this shows is, in the four highest leveraged at bats of Reynolds' season, he got on base all four times. He got on base 5 of the top 6 times, 6 of of the top 10, 8 of the top 13. Sometimes those at bats were in the 8th or 9th inning of a close game, sometimes they were in extra innings, one time it was as early as the 4th inning (bases loaded, 2 down, losing by 2 runs).

And what's interesting, as you peruse the list, is how rarely has has struck out when a truly high leverage situation arose. Twice in the top 10 leveraged situations, four times in the top 20, 7 times in the top 30.

It is pretty hard to look at this data objectively and conclude that Reynolds has not done pretty well in meaningful situations this year.