I had no idea he was having such a good season: .277/.366/.576, 30 HR, 19 SB to boot.

[H]e’s been playing with a sore top hand.

Sounds like you might want to hire somebody to hit his hand with a hammer once a week or so.

I had no idea he was having such a good season:

Not many do.
In fact, I don't think MR has gotten any discussion around here since the heated "Will Mark Reynolds ever be as good as Josh Fields" debate.

I remember you giving a defense for Mark Reynolds selection to the all-star game.

A few fun links from hittrackeronline.com

Reynolds is the current "Golden Sledgehammer" leader, averaging 418.6 ft/home run.
He also has hit the longest home run of the season, 481 feet to the far porch of Friday's.
And last night he hit the longest home run in the short history of Citi Field.
And that's before he made this catch.
I think Nick Piecoro put it best in his article:

We've asked it before, and we'll ask it again: Is there a more interesting player to watch on a daily basis than Mark Reynolds? Take Saturday: He struck out twice early in the game, looking lost against Oliver Perez. But in the seventh, he made yet another diving catch of a foul ball near the stands, then drilled a home run in the ninth that had teammates wondering if it was his longest ever, which would be saying something for him.

I remember you giving a defense for Mark Reynolds selection to the all-star game.

Well, he deserved to be there over, instead of one of the million Phillies that Manuel dragged along.

And every game you have to sit through the the local announcers saying..."Imagine how good Reynolds would be if he could cut down his strikeouts."

"Imagine how good Reynolds would be if he could cut down his strikeouts."

He'd be Alex Cora? :)

Mark Reynolds has been a great addition to my fantasy team since picking him up off the waiver wire when Encarnacion went south early this year. He really is raking.

“It’s a good time to give him a blow,” Hinch said.

Hinch then coughed uncomfortably and stared into space for several excruciating moments.

They won with Garland pitching a complete game so everything worked out for Hinch.

Ya'll all know what I'm gonna say but I'll say it anyway ...

Reynolds is having one of the great on-contact seasons of all-time and it can't last.

444/921

That's up there with Howard 2006 (455/958).

Which doesn't mean he can't continue to hit enough bombs to be a perfectly fine bat at 3B (e.g. Branyan) but, yes, his absurd K rate will catch up to him (as it has in his career-to-date).

Weren't reynolds and zimmerman at UVA at the same time? That must have been a heck of a left side of the infield.

In fact, I don't think MR has gotten any discussion around here since the heated "Will Mark Reynolds ever be as good as Josh Fields" debate.

Ha! I fondly remember being on the wrong side of that one.

Walt,

I really think you need to remove home runs out of those numbers. Home Runs on contact are a lot more like strikeouts when it comes to consistency than singles and doubles on balls in play. A guy who is a threat to lead the league in Home Runs is always going to have very good on contact numbers.

There's also the consideration that Reynolds can run (unlike Howard) which has tended to indicate a higher HBIP than what you otherwise might expect.

My experiences in projecting using high strikeouts as a negative indicator and low strikeouts as a positive indicator were very unimpressive. It seems like the extra strikeouts had positive implications for results when you do hit the ball, above and beyond what you'd expect from mere selection bias. Bobby Abreu and Darren Fletcher were the two most memorable examples, and the Fletcher one even caused me to revamp the projection system for the next year.

Computer issues prevent me from busting out the system (which I suspect still works just fine) but I'm guessing the extra strikeouts have an extremely small negative consequence for Reynolds future projections.

Just as an example, in 1998 Bobby Abreu hit .398 on balls in play. There's no way that was going to continue...

...however he cut his strikeout rate AND, while .398 didn't continue, he currently sits on .353 for his career, a long career to boot.

Reynolds career HBIP is currently at .356. That's actually doable for a career (Jeter's is .361) though that probably is still a little high for Reynolds. But if he settles in at around .335 AND he cuts his strikeouts a little AND continues to hit at power levels equal to or better than 2009...

...well then that's quite a player regardless. At only 25, that scenario seems as possible as any other right now.

Why do B-Ref and Fangraphs have different numbers for BABIP for the same player in the same season?

For Abreau 1998 one has .393 the other .398.

“It’s a good time to give him a blow,” Hinch said.


Hinch then coughed uncomfortably and stared into space for several excruciating moments.

My high school basketball coach used them same expression "Give you a blow" when he was letting someone rest, and it always got the same response. I now know he's not the only one.

I think this worked out.

On the rerelease of Love's Forever Changes, there is a long studio cut in which Arthur Lee berates his guitarist because the solo isn't good enough. He's yelling, "Come on man, you said you were going to blow on this cut, well you got to BLOW on it."

ronh: the numerator may or may not include reaching on errors, or reaching on fielder's choice (with no one getting out). The denominator may or may not include SF. Bunts may or may not be thrown out altogether (in both numerator and denominator).

Since "BABIP" is not official, then we can make up whatever definition we want.