Reyes, Wright, and the Winning Ballplayer
By Mike Silva ~ September 20th, 2009. Filed under: Mike Silva.
Those that are Knicks fans in the audience are probably familiar with the work of Newsday Knicks beat reporter Alan Hahn. His blog “The Knicks Fix” is the standard for reporting on the team. On Friday Hahn opined about David Lee and Nate Robinson going into 2009-2010. He questioned whether Lee and Robinson can not only produce great statistical seasons this year, but finally be part of tangible team improvement. In short, Hahn is saying that both need to put an emphasis on winning, which means different things for both players. I couldn’t help but think how similar this is to David Wright and Jose Reyes going into next season.
Wright and Reyes clearly are further along in their respective sport than Lee and Robinson. Both have been primarily on successful teams, have playoff experience, and been All Stars more than once. You have to question whether each is a “winning ballplayer” that could lead their team on the field. I don’t just mean intangibles, I mean producing consistently at a championship level. I received grief for questioning both earlier this year, but I hold firm that Reyes and Wright still need to elevate their games.
There are still glaring opportunities in both players’ games. First, Wright will need to answer the questions about his power outage this year. I know Citi Field is responsible for a great deal of his power loss. Back in early July hitrackeronline.com stated that Wright had already lost six homers to Citi. I am sure that number has increased since then. The problem is not Citi, but the fact that he hasn’t shown much power on the road either. Why is he behind 88 mph fastballs? There is also his nasty throwing habit that still plagues him. You could argue that he cost the National League home field advantage with his error in the All Star Game. Just a week ago he made a sloppy throw during a first inning against Florida. His throws are sloppy, lazy, and quite simply unacceptable. I would expect a championship ballplayer to rise above this and improve. If he wants to look for an example, go back to tapes of September 2007. That was Wright at his best. We haven’t seen him that good since. Apparently the team is putting together a “book” on Wright’s season. Hopefully there is a chapter about looking inward.
Jose Reyes is a bigger enigma. It’s “back to the future” with the leg problems. He will have the same question of durability that plagued him back in 2005. That year we held our breath every time he slid hard into a base. Fran Healy would have at least one “is Reyes hurt?” quote per game. Reyes best season arguably was 2006. That year Jose Valentin was credited with helping Jose stay focused, a task that was left to Miguel Cairo the year before. It’s about time for Jose to grow up, look inward, and stay focused on his own. He is at the point of his career that people will no longer talk about his ceiling, but more in terms of what he is. That to me is a player that lacks baseball intelligence, consistency, and tends to sulk when things don’t go his way. I am not saying Reyes doesn’t care about winning, but has a heck of a lot more fun when his offense is part of that winning. He also has done nothing to help bridge the Latino/White divide that exists in the locker room. This divide is something that Casey Stern of XM Radio discussed with me last Sunday. Ironically Reyes is the key for the entire Mets offense to run. Without him in the lineup you lose that first inning spark that helped them jump out early on teams. I believe those first inning runs are so important in the success of the Mets.
Some probably think the whole “winning ballplayer” is a myth. That’s fine, but you have to admit the warts I point out on each of their games are valid. The Mets are in an impossible position because you can’t get equal value if you trade them, but you might not be able to win with them. Next year will be an interesting point in both their careers because I have a feeling they will prove to us just exactly what type of player they really are.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Good article. Personally, I am in the minority. I hate watching Reyes. He is the second dumbest player I have ever seen (Angel Pagan being the first. Both have surpassed Gerald (Ice) Williams in recent years) And I happen to think that he makes the opposition better, not his own team, with his antics. Mr. Me. Wright has also betrayed poor instincts, particularly defensively. He has never had a particularly quick bat, but it has slowed down a lot this year. Hate to say it, but if he is not concealing some kind of injury, the sudden dropoff smells like PED’s. That is what we say about every other player wo takes a sudden slide, whether that is fair or not. And you are right about the Mets and early runs. Except for 2006, when they had a minor choke, but seemed to have that comeback gusto, this team scores early and swallows hard late. Not the kind of offense I want.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:32 am
“He will have the same question of durability that plagued him back in 2005.”
Must have been some terrible durability – Reyes played 161 games in 2005. Needless to say, but this article is total garbage.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:33 am
James, if you remember, that entire season was a litmus test for Reyes being able to play everyday. Of course he passed, but I remember every tweak becoming a big deal or worry that he would pull his hamstring. Unfortunately, you will see this again next year. I think he will be fine, but this years injury is very perplexing.
I love Reyes and Wright, but you can’t deny the fact that there are facets of their game that need work. As a Mets fans it pains me to write these type of pieces, but I can’t hide from the truth.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:38 am
…seriously?
I guess 2006 never happen and the Mets were not 1 game short of the WS and were a winning team with Both Reyes and Wright. Silly articles like this is why i hate Met fans.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:33 am
this website is a plague. kill yourselves and save humanity before you infect us with your idiocy
September 20th, 2009 at 10:42 am
If you want to argue that Wright and Reyes aren’t or haven’t lived up the their potential, fine. People may disagree, but at least an argument can be made for both sides using facts.
But to say they aren’t “winning ballplayers” doesn’t make a lot of sense since the Mets came very close to winning it all with them on the team, and the Mets’ struggles have more to do with injuries and terrible pitching than Wright’s 315/401/457 line last year.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:48 am
“I love Reyes and Wright, but you can’t deny the fact that there are facets of their game that need work. As a Mets fans it pains me to write these type of pieces, but I can’t hide from the truth.”
You could write this about 99% of all players in Major League Baseball. This is talk radio nonsense, but considering your pedigree and decades of listening to WFAN I’m not surprised. The phrase “winning ballplayer” means zilch. It’s a lazy expression used by those who have nothing intelligent to say.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:52 am
You are the worst kind of Met fan Mike. The kind that would rather crap on the laudable players (Wright, Reyes) and laud the crap players (Francoeur, Cora). This is also a hilarious post considering you wrote the following just a couple weeks ago:
http://nybaseballdigest.com/?p=15353
“Mets fans should be careful about trashing the star players on this team. Remember trade the core? If anything, 2009 should teach us that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.”
Hypocrisy much?
September 20th, 2009 at 11:17 am
/facepalm
Wow, terrible article.
September 20th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Awful.
The Mets were one lousy hit away from a WS in 2006, in what you cite as Reyes’ best season (I’d argue 2008, but OK). Nevermind that 06 team was down 2 SPs, a LF and a dynamite setup man, and had the stupidest manager possible, who for some unknonw reason fell in love with a mediocre pile of crap reliever over his OTHER dynamite setup man.
07 – whatever. Wanna blame Reyes’ .500 OPS September? The team still scored 6 runs per game in September 2007.
08 – How about blaming DELGADO for OPSing .660 for half a year? How about blaming PEDRO for being god awful? And then losing Wagner crippled us.
09 – duh.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Hahaha come on “Bridging the White/Latino” divide?? Hahaha. Hahahaha. And Wright’s errors are b/c he’s “lazy”? All the talk about him over the years has been that if anything he works too hard, not that he doesn’t work hard enough.
Yes, the Mets need Wright to rediscover his power stroke, and they need Reyes to get back and healthy, that’s fair to say, but all the other stuff is nonsense. The “winning ballplayer” and “but you might not be able to win with them” lines are especially epic. Come on. You need to come up with some better stuff than that. Those two are two of the best players in the league. We saw how much of a drop off there is b/w Reyes and the rest of what we’ve been putting out at SS… the Mets are a much better team with him than without him. And Wright has been off all year and has had a bad year by his standards no doubt, but the guy is still top 10 in the league in AVG and OBP which is a season most players would take in a “good year” nevermind a bad one.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:00 am
Is Mike Silva a Met fan? Does he watch the games? Is he paid by the Phillies to say stupid things about the Mets that might engender bad managerial decisions like keeping Cora and Francouer?
What other explanations are there for this impossibly stupid article he wrote? Wright has made fewer throwing errors every year he’s been in the league. They are no longer a significant liability to his game and really haven’t been since 2005. Both Wright and Reyes are amongst the best 15 players in baseball (if Reyes stays healthy and Wright returns to 2005-2008 form).
September 21st, 2009 at 12:30 pm
what a terrible article…….for the record here people are so blatantly wrong about what happened in 2006. Missing 2 of your 3 best starters and your top setup man is a fact everyone seems to forget. And all this crap about reyes being unclutch is crap too. In the BIGGEST at bat of his life (in the 9th inning of game 7 with runners on base), he hit what may have been the hardest hit ball of the entire series (CERTAINLY hit better than Molina’s homer)…unfortunately luck wasnt on his side and it went right into Edmond’s glove….2 feet to the right or left and its a game tying triple and suddenly reyes is a winning player”…..pure crap