Hit Reyes, Don’t Worry About Walks

…there has been a lot of ink spilled over the last week or so about jose reyes, his inability to get on base and willie randoplh’s tolerance for it…i’m tired of reading the same story over and over again…

…so, i tried to think about this in a different way…

…everyone keeps saying he needs to walk more, that he needs to be more patient…

…the thing is, if he just can’t stop swinging the stick, than maybe he just needs to not swing and miss so much…ichiro and juan pierre come to mind…

Last season, Ichiro Suzuki batted .372, tops in baseball, and had a .414 on base percentage, ninth in baseball, yet he walked just 49 times, which ranks well in the bottom half amongst Major League hitters and comparable to guys with OBPs in the mid– to-low .300 range.  He struck out just 63 times in 704 at-bats, though.  Amongst all the league’s .300 hitters, only Jason Kendall, Shea Hillenbrand and Juan Pierre struck out fewer times per at-bat…

Speaking of Juan Pierre, whose 2004 stat line, a .326 AVG, .407 OBP, 45 SB and 100 RS, would be a reasonable season for Reyes in the early half of his career while batting leadoff, has not walked all that often either.  During 2004, Pierre drew just 45 walks, again, ranking him amongst the bottom half of all hitters.  However, he rarely struck out…

If the 2004 version of Pierre or Ichiro was batting leadoff for the Mets this season, while posting the .310 AVG and .371 OBP that Pierre sported at this point in June, or the .335 AVG and .382 OBP sported by Ichiro, along with their signficantly low walk totals, do you think we’d be reading as many columns being posted by journalists and bloggers about their need to walk more…

…i doubt it…

Yeah, but, Cerrone, at this point last June, Ichiro had 20 walks and Pierre had 22 walks.  Right now, Reyes has just eight…

…fair enough…

Add 12 walks to Reyes’s current total, to bring him up to Pierre’s and Ichiro’s total of 20, and Reyes’s OBP is just .329, still at the bottom of the pack amongst leadoff hitters…

However, cut his strikeouts down from 38 to 13, to equal that of Pierre’s from 2004 at this point in June, and assume he’d hit .300, as was Pierre and Ichiro from opening day last season through June, which we know Reyes is capable of, and Reyes’s batting average jumps from .277 to .330 and his OBP goes from .290 to .367…

Walks are not the problem.  Putting the ball in play is the problem.  Reyes doesn’t need to develop better patience at the plate.  He needs to develop better control with his bat…

…tell me he should take more pitches to put him in a more advantageous count, and i can accept that…though if you look at his numbers, you’ll see that the more pitches he sees, the less chance there is of him getting a hit, oddly enough…

One thing Reyes can start to try and do is put the ball on the ground more.  Last season, Ichiro hit more than three balls on the ground for every one he hit in the air.  Pierre was only slightly behind Ichiro’s rate.  With their speed, this allows them the opportunity, at least, to leg a ball out.  This season, Reyes is putting more or less the same number of balls in the air as he is on the ground, robbing himself of nearly 30 extra chances to beat out a fielder’s arm for a hit…

…maybe the mets need to implement the willie mays hayes rule, imposed on wesley snipes’s character in the film major league, as my friend johnnyg has been demanding for months now…for those unaware, snipes’s character, hayes, had lightening fast speed…when hayes would hit the ball in the air, his manager demanded 100 push-ups right there on the field…

…i’m kidding, of course…

Mets 1B Doug Mientkiewicz recently ranted to WFAN about how the Shea Stadium infield slows the ball down.  Imagine if the infield grass was slick enough, Mientkiewicz explained, that Reyes could utilize it to his advantage, the way players long have gained hits by slapping balls down on to Astro-turf, scuffing them by corner-infielders playing in to protect against the bunt.  Inversely, the Mets infielders are quick and agile enough to defend against the same being done to them, Mientkiewicz believes…

Ichiro swings, Reyes swings, Pierre swings.  None of them walk.  Only two of them hit.  Reyes simply needs to hit more, that’s all.  Don’t over complicate it…