The Cardinals said Alex Reyes will be in the rotation to start the year. Schwing. Or, in relation to him, schwing and miss. If I haven’t mentioned this before (I have but deal with it), I focus on redrafts with rookies. I want to know what a guy is going to do in 2017. A good way to eliminate a lot of mystery is to hire a talking dog and a group of stoner kids. One dog; you can keep Scrappy-Doo. Another way to eliminate mystery is to focus on players that have already gotten a strong taste in the majors. *reaches into top hat* Ali Cadabra… Ali Kazam… Alex Reyes. Frank Voila! A rookie has a starting job for 2017 and I’m immediately more interested in said rookie over said rookie who has unsaid starting job. Then you throw in the Cards, whose pitching admittedly looked like crizzap last year, but they have history on their side of being better than they should be. Or herstory if one of our five girl readers are following along. Or theirstory if we have Social Justice Warriors reading and they just can’t stand non-gender neutral language. Not to completely 180 this snitch, I don’t know how Alex Reyes is supposed to be in the rotation when they already have five without him. It’s all right, Lance Lynn, Mike Leake, Jaime Garcia and Adam Wainwright have never seen an unexpected injury they can’t get themselves into, so Reyes will get his innings, and he can’t throw 200 next year anyway. So, what can we expect from Alex Reyes for 2017 fantasy baseball?
You can see everything you need to know about Alex Reyes in his stats from the 46 innings he threw in 2016 with the Cardinals. His 10.2 K/9 shows how devastating all his pitches can be. He has a 12-6 curve that’s knee-buckling. *someone runs past* Why did Carlos Beltran just run past crying? Hmm. Reyes’s change works off his 97 MPH and is swing-and-miss. Sadly, he can’t truly control any of them, which goes to his 4.5 BB/9 that was 4.4 in Triple-A and 4.7 in Double-A, i.e., his control has never been good and it didn’t suddenly get better. His 1.57 ERA from last year shows how great he can be, but his 4.05 xFIP shows that he needs to leave a ton of runners (walks) on base. It’s the only way he’s going to succeed. To give you a small sample size snapshot — that’s what she said when she saw your Snapchat! — he needed 17.2 pitches per inning. That would’ve been 8th worst in the majors if he qualified, let’s just say guys he would’ve joined are not the best company to keep — James Shields, Pineda, Liriano, Gio Gonzalez, Robbie Ray. With Reyes, you’re looking at a guy that will average about 5 2/3 IP and strike out seven guys each start with a 1.40 WHIP. You know it’s not terrible, because you just owned Pineda last year, but there’s a ton of risk here until Reyes shows he can control his pitches a bit better. For 2017, I’ll project him for 9-7/3.89/1.37/132 in 120 IP, bouncing in and out of the rotation until there’s a serious injury.
