First, I must say to the board, this is the first post I've made in months where I actually thought more than 5 minutes about what I was going to say. I've been incredibly busy with school and its taken serious time away from baseball crap. I'll talk much more about Reyes, Wainwright, and the rest of the team when I make my annual prediction thread a week or so before opening day.
skmsw wrote:He was hitting (not sitting) 91 this week. And yes, that IS like last year, when he worked 88-91 -- and when he gave up rather a lot of homers, had an ERA of 5, pitched well enough to earn an ERA of more like 5 and a half (see: FIP), and admitted he couldn't throw as hard as he used to and didn't know why. So, being where he left off last season is no particular accomplishment so far, in my eyes.
Til he is sitting 92-94, and hitting 95+ at least a couple-few pitches per start, he still is not the same as he was exiting 2005, regardless of whether due to pitch selection, mechanics, injury, fatigue, or the lunar cycles. Mind you, I'm NOT saying he can't be a good pitcher exactly the way he is. But even if only in my eyes, the mystery of where his explosive stuff and late movement and above-average velocity all went is very much still out there.
I don't know what games you saw but every one I saw of Reyes in 2005, both Spring and in Memphis, he didn't sit 92-94. He sat 90-93 with three or four 94's and one or two 95+'s. Now this may not sound like much but a few mph's here or there go a long way in how you frame your case.
The same with last year. You say he sat 88-91 but I can prove (I charted Reyes' starts in StL last year) that he hit 92 on the gun more times than he hit 88 (and 93 more times than 87). OK, 1 mph, big deal. But now he's gone from once sitting 92-94 and losing 3-5 mph on his fastball to siting 88-92 and losing 1-2 mph on his fastball. A few mph on a radar gun can turn mole hills into mountains.
Did he lose a little velocity on his fastball last year? Yes. Do I believe it is something to be very concerned about? No. He still missed bats (in both the minors and majors) and still had late life and movement that made is fastball look harder than it was. I can't judge Reyes' spring until I see him start (should be starting on the 20th, 25th, and 30th which are all TV games).
skmsw wrote:I think you should care. Rather a lot, actually. First off, if his velocity dropped 3-5 miles an hour for no reason from Fall 2005 til Spring 2006, what are the chances that it will just stay where it is -- instead of continuing to drop, or giving out altogether?
Second off, I agree with you that we should not look only at velocity. The whole package does indeed matter -- pitchers with three good pitches and great command can be average or even dominant sitting at 88-91. But looking at his whole packkage, it's important to remember that not only the velocity fell.
Reyes was a great prospect not only because he had electric stuff (which in 2005 he did, but which in 2006 we rarely saw); he also had dynamite command and plus control. Through his minor league career he walked 1.81 batters and allowed 0.79 homers per 9 innings; last year he was double both of those.
Maybe this is just learning curve stuff, or small sample size stuff, and he will simply locate better this year and moving forward. But I'm a little concerned that his velocity AND his control AND his command were ALL down. High pitches that we think were missed location -- used to get past hitters, but he has openly admitted that he can't reach back for that anymore. Corners he used to paint he was missing in 2006; pitches that used to move late are not doing what he expected them to do right now.
If his velocity, command, AND control were all actually different last year, then why don't his minor league stats bear that out? You'd think that a guy who'd lost significant velocity, command, and control on his fastball would perform much worse in the same setting that he did when he had all of those things, wouldn't you?
The numbers don't bear that out. In AAA, Reyes gave up HR's and H's at roughly the same rates he did in '05. His K9 dropped (about 1/2 a K per start) which may have been something to worry about had his BB's not dropped even more (greater than 3/4 less per start than in '05). He dominated the PCL like Carp dominates the NL. So why did his numbers change so much when he made the jump to the majors?
Any number of reasons. Being forced to throw the ball differently, having to use a pitch he wasn't comfortable with, facing tougher competition that didn't whiff on his change as much, etc.... I don't want to say Duncan is ruining Reyes but is it just coincidence that all of the command troubles have come under Duncan? Just a question to think about. There's no way to correctly answer this.
