Thursday, March 1, 2007

Anthony Reyes

Pitching in AA in 2004, Anthony Reyes struck out 102 batters and walked only 13 in 74.1 innings. I was convinced he was a future superstar. It now appears that his strikeout rate that season may have been a bit of a fluke. While he still has a fairly bright future, nothing he's done before or since seems consistent with such an overpowering K/9 rate at AA ball.

In the majors last year he struck out 72 and walked 34 in 85.1 innings. That's not a bad K/9 or K/BB and indicates that he should easily improve on his 5.06 ERA of a year ago. Based on his minor league stats, it also seems reasonable that he could lower his BB rate a little. So far in the major leagues, he's been a fly ball pitcher, so I expect him to continue to allow home runs. Overall, I think its reasonable to expect an ERA right around 4 or slightly higher this year.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed. I'm a Cards fan and I'm almost a little pessimistic on Reyes. I expect Adam Wainwright to post better fantasy numbers this season if both are healthy. Anthony can be a solid #3, but not too much more. Hopefully we won't need him to do that.

Anonymous said...

I diagree. He has way too much talent which was evident throughout the minors. I think you're writing him off after a tough year -- one in which he was mishandled by the Cardinals, sent down to the minors for no good reason. If you are talking 2007, he will rebound and post some admirable numbers. If you are talking keeper -- ceiling is very high. For the latter, my advice is get in on the ground level.