Pablo Reyes legitimately rakes ... isn't baseball great?
Baseball's randomness strikes again as the 29-year-old career minor-leaguer is top-five in the league in batting average.
How can you not be romantic about baseball?
It’s only fitting that a Moneyball quote defines the meteoric rise of the 2023 Boston Red Sox fan favorite, and former Oakland Athletic utility man, Pablo Reyes.
The soon-to-be 30-year-old found himself designated for assignment by the lowly Athletics in May before the Red Sox, in the midst of a shortstop carousel, took a chance on him in hopes he could ease the bridging to Trevor Story, who came off the 60-Day IL on Aug. 8.
What’s he done? Well, only slash .331/.369/.446 with a 121 wRC+ (100 is average) and 0.7 fWAR in 132 plate appearances.
He was never supposed to be this good. Baseball, amirite?
Among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances (entering Sunday Night Baseball), Reyes is tied for No. 4 in the majors in batting average. The only player in the American League with a higher one is AL MVP runner-up candidate Corey Seager of the Texas Rangers.
Batting average has become an obsolete metric when analyzing players in the grand scheme of things, but hitting .331 is still hitting .331. When you’re in the same tier as Jose Altuve (.327), Ronald Acuña Jr. (.331), Freddie Freeman (.333), Corey Seager (.346) and Luis Arraez (.357), you’re doing something right.
However, with the exception of Arraez and Reyes, each of the hitters in the top six for batting average is above the league average in isolated power (ISO) –– SLG minus AVG.
What makes Arraez so good, though, is his elite-level placement hitting. In baseball jargon, he’s a real “hit ‘em where they ain’t!” kind of player. While Arraez has MLB pedigree, Reyes has quietly become a very similar bat in an albeit much smaller sample size.
Entering play on Sunday, here’s how they measured up against each other.
Now, this isn’t to suggest Reyes is a better hitter than the two-time All-Star and (likely) two-time batting title winner. To do so, based on roughly 130 plate appearances, would be irresponsible and be the definition of getting caught up in the moment.
That said, it does encapsulate how good the career minor leaguer has been for the Red Sox in 2023.
Moreover, it does show that this may not be a flukey hot streak for Reyes. While his expected batting average entering play Sunday was .287 compared to his .322 actual, his expected slugging is only one point worse than his .441 actual entering play.
Enjoy it while it lasts, Red Sox fans. Baseball is a game of randomness and you just never know what tomorrow will bring. However, it just goes to show how good so-called “bargain bin” shopping can be if you do it correctly as an organization.
Since Chaim Bloom took over operations after the 2019 season, the Red Sox have found diamonds in the rough in John Schreiber, Rob Refsnyder, Kevin Plawecki, Hunter Renfroe, Kiké Hernández, Michael Wacha and now Reyes.
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A career minor leaguer who gets to age 30+ is making $400,000.00+ which is not too bad.
I never said that he nor others do not deserve the opportunity. If you seriously looked at the talent level of the players currently filling a MLB roster there’s at least 5 per team who are there solely to fill a roster spot. As for Reyes he might be on a MLB roster next September but it will not be on the RedSox which is my point.