I was on a radio show yesterday morning, and the host started asking me questions about the Mets. I got to talking about Jose Reyes and blurted out, without necessarily thinking a lot about it, “he’s the MVP of the NL in my mind right now”. Reyes is having an excellent season thusfar, but is he the NL MVP as we approach the midway point of the year?
Let me outline a case for Reyes, and a case against Reyes. Reyes’ .336 batting average leads the NL by 13 points over Matt Kemp. He’s second in the league in stolen bases with 26. He also leads the league in triples with 12, nearly doubling the next closest player (Shane Victorino with seven). His OPS of .888 is tenth in the league, but is first among middle infielders. Rickie Weeks of the Brewers is second among middle infielders with an .859 mark.
Middle infielders won MVP awards in both 2007 and 2008. In 2007, Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies won the award in the NL, while in 2008, Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox won in the AL. Let’s compare Reyes’ season to each of those players’ MVP years.
| BA | OBP | SLG | 2B | 3B | HR | SB | |
| Reyes | .336 | .380 | .508 | 20 | 12 |
3 |
26 |
| Rollins | .296 | .344 | .531 | 38 | 20 | 30 | 41 |
| Pedroia | .326 | .376 | .493 | 54 | 2 | 17 | 20 |
Take a look at that. Reyes has only played in 70 of the Mets 73 games this season, not even halfway through the season, and he’s comparing very favorably to both of the players so far. He has the highest OPS of the three, buoyed by a high batting average and a slugging percentage that is strong based upon his triples, as opposed to his home runs or doubles. It’s not out of the question for Reyes to finish with 25 triples on the season, a mark that hasn’t been reached since 1925. If Reyes managed to hit 40 doubles, 25 triples, and steal 50 bases all while maintaining an OPS in the high-.800s, he’d have to be a shoo-in to win the MVP award, right?
Well…not quite. Rollins won his MVP award despite being nowhere near the top ten in OPS, mainly due to the stupid “20-20-20-20” label slapped on him by mass media (the same mass media who ignored Curtis Granderson doing the SAME THING in the SAME YEAR in the AL. Granderson finished tenth in the MVP voting for an 88-win Tigers team). Rollins’ 89-win Phillies team snuck into the playoffs on the last day of the season after a collapse by, ironically, Reyes and the Mets. You can’t even point to him being the BEST PLAYER on the BEST TEAM, because *two* of his Phillies teammates (Chase Utley and Ryan Howard) had highier OPSes than him by 100 points. The award should have gone to Matt Holliday or Prince Fielder, but I digress.
Comparing Reyes to Pedroia takes us down a different, but similar, route. Pedroia’s Red Sox won 95 games and went to the playoffs as the AL Wild Card. But unlike in Rollins’ MVP year, where there were plenty of better hitters in the league, everything was a jumbled mess in the 2008 American League. No player topped 1.000 in OPS, and the highest player, Milton Bradley, was a DH. Like Rollins, Pedroia wasn’t the best player on the best team, as teammate Kevin Youkilis had a higher OPS than Pedroia’s. But dammit, the writers love guys who get lots of hits. Both players cranked over 200 hits in their rookie years, and something as silly as that tends to be ingrained into the minds of voters.
I briefly mentioned one similarity between Rollins and Pedroia that Reyes does not have in common with them. Namely, their team. Both the 2007 Phillies and 2008 Red Sox made the playoffs. The 2011 Mets are three games under .500 and 6.5 games out of a playoff spot in the National League, with six teams separating them from the wild card leading Braves. It’s going to take one hell of a turnaround for this team to go anywhere. And quite frankly, with the Mets’ financial situation, I don’t think that turnaround is going to happen. Reyes could get 200 hits, 25 triples, 40 stolen bases, and score 110 runs, and if the Mets have a .450 winning percentage at the end of the year, he’ll be happy with his top ten finish, but he won’t be bringing home any hardware.
If Reyes is trading come July though, we could have a more interesting story on our hands. If say, the Reds acquire Reyes, and he puts up those numbers, and the team bypasses the Brewers and Cardinals in the NL Central to win their second straight divisional title? Well then ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a good MVP candidate on our hands. I think it’s ridiculous and hypocritical that the writers dock players points on great seasons just because they have a crappy supporting cast, but it’s happened for years, and will continue to happen years in the future. It’s one of those things that just IS, and won’t be changed as long as the old guard is still in play.
I leave you with one parting shot. Fangraphs uses a stat called WAR (Wins Above Replacement) to determine a player’s overall value, considering both offense and defense. Jose Bautista leads the majors in WAR at 4.4. Adrian Gonzalez is second at 4.1. And tied with Gonzalez at 4.1, and leading the National League? Yup, Jose Reyes. He’s been the best player in the league this year. It’s just a shame that unless he gets dealt to a contender, he’s not going to get the recognition that he deserves.
