Alex Reyes’s Weakness Isn’t That Strong

Cardinals pitching prospect Alex Reyes is putting up some gaudy numbers in High-A Palm Beach. Through seven starts, the 20-year-old owns a sparkling 1.78 ERA and an equally sparkling 1.80 FIP. FIPs below 2.00 don’t come around all that often, even in the minors. In fact, Reyes’s mark is the lowest among qualified pitchers in the Florida State League.

Given these figures, it goes without saying that Reyes has done plenty of things right this year. But there’s one particular aspect of his performance that really jumps off of the page: his strikeout rate. Reyes has struck out 58 of the 142 batters he’s faced this year, which gives him an Aroldis Chapman-esque 41% strikeout rate. That’s a higher rate than any qualified starter in affiliated baseball this year.

Reyes posted excellent strikeout numbers last year as well. Although he struck out a more pedestrian 30% of batters faced, his strikeout rate was still one of the best in the Low-A Midwest League. Yet, despite his high strikeout numbers, Reyes’s overall performance in the Midwest League was nothing spectacular. His 3.45 FIP was certainly good, especially coming from a teenager, but it wasn’t spectacular. A total of 26 pitchers who threw at least 100 innings in Low-A last year did so with FIPs lower than Reyes’s. 

Reyes, however, turned things up a notch in the season’s final month. Over his final four starts, he posted a 1.68 ERA, and struck out 40% of opposing batters. Basically, he finished last season doing the same types of things he’s done so far this year.

Reyes’s recent dominance isn’t at all surprising given his arsenal of pitches. The most exciting pitch of them all is his fastball, which touches triple-digits at times.

Regard, from lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel:

Talked to a scout who saw Cards’ RHP Alex Reyes last night in Hi-A. 96-99, touched 101 mph for first 4 innings, then a paltry 94-97 mph late

— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) April 16, 2015

Kiley also relayed to me that Reyes is wielding a 65-grade curveball these days. Featuring a curve like that, paired with a high-90s fastball, it’s no wonder that hitters are swinging and missing so often. In terms of a third pitch, Kiley reported that the right-hander’s changeup is still a work in progress: one scout said it was at least average, but another saw him in a recent outing where he had no feel for the pitch.

From a statistical perspective, Reyes’s knack for striking out nearly half the opposition is very encouraging. According to my KATOH research, a pitcher’s strikeout rate is a very strong predictor of future success. This is especially true of pitchers in the low minors, where walk rates don’t tell you quite as much about a pitcher’s future in the big leagues.

Still, while not quite as predictive as his strikeouts, a pitcher’s walk rate also isn’t entirely negligible for hurlers at Reyes’s level, either. So it’s concerning to see Reyes’s walk rate hovering north of 14%. This mark is undeniably a reflection of his imprecise command. Kiley gave his command a 40 Future Value (FV) grade heading into the year. At the time, only three pitchers in the top 143 — Touki Toussaint, Kyle Crick, and the recently promoted Lance McCullers — featured lower command grades on the 20-80 scale.

Reyes’s most recent outing, which took place on Sunday,  embodied everything that can go wrong with the 20-year-old and his spotty command. Per usual, he was basically unhittable. He allowed zero hits in three innings of work, and produced six of his nine outs via the strikeout. However, despite not yielding any hits, he still walked a troubling five batters.

Although he didn’t allow any earned runs on Sunday, Reyes clearly didn’t have his A-game. That’s the case most any time a pitcher throws just 52% (39 of 75) of pitches for strikes and exits after three innings. Reyes’s command has been known to come and go, and it clearly went more than it came in his most recent outing.

High walk rates and all, Reyes still looks good in KATOH’s eyes due to his copious strikeouts. Heading into the year, my model pegged him for 3.7 WAR through age-28. That may not sound like a lot, but given the attrition rate of pitching prospects in the low minors it’s actually pretty solid for a pitcher as far away as Reyes is. Among all prospects, this mark placed him 121st highest.

Reyes also looks a heck of a lot better using 2015 data. Plugging his year-to-date numbers into the KATOH machine, we get a remarkable 12.7 WAR through age-28. Very few pitchers strike guys out as often as Reyes has, and that he’s done it as a 20-year-old in High-A is even more impressive.

Now, let’s look at some comps for Reyes and his absurd strikeout numbers. Using league-adjusted, regressed stats, along with age, I calculated the Mahalanobis distance between Reyes’s High-A performance and every High-A season since 1991 in which a pitcher faced at least 350 batters. Below, you’ll find a list of historical players whose performances were nearest and dearest to Reyes’s, ranked from most to least similar.

Name	IP thru 28	WAR thru 28
Matt Moore*	347	5.1
Trevor May*	82	0.9
Brien Taylor	0.0	0.0
Tyler Glasnow*	0.0	0.0
Mike Megrew	0.0	0.0
Jake McGee*	224	5.3
Jake Peavy	1,362	30.0
Jose Arredondo	220	1.2
Mike Judd	75	0.0
Chad Billingsley	1,175	19.5
Bill Pulsipher*	323	1.2
Oscar Munoz	35	0.0
Erik Bedard*	658	15.4
Everett Stull	47	0.0
Shigeki Noguchi	0.0	0.0
Rick Ankiel*	242	3.6
Rick Huisman	39	0.1
Franklin Morales	423	0.7
Sean Manaea*	0.0	0.0
Jaret Wright	758	8.7

*Pitchers who have yet to play their age-28 seasons.

There are no shortage of flops in this bunch, but that’ll always be the case with pitchers, especially when they’re years away from the big leagues. There are quite a few zeros in the WAR column, but there are also a few pretty big numbers mixed in, headlined by 30.0 from Jake Peavy and 19.5 from Chad Billingsley. You also have Matt Moore, Reyes’s top comp, who was off to a fine start to his big-league career before he underwent Tommy John surgery just two starts into his age-25 season.

As much as I love analyzing minor-league stats, their utility is somewhat limited in cases like Reyess’. Forecasting prospects’ career trajectories is hard. It’s even harder for players who remain some distance from the majors. And it’s harder still when the player in question is a pitcher rather than a batter.

You can build statistical models and generate comps until you’re blue in the face, but when it comes to pitching prospects, there’s still so much variation that just can’t be accounted for. Adding scouting reports to the mix obviously helps. But no matter what, there will always be guys who dominate in the minors, but fail to live up to expectations in the big leagues — due to injury or otherwise. Several of Reyes’s comps — including Brien Taylor and Trevor May — are prime examples.

Nonetheless, Alex Reyes looks to be about as good a bet as any A-Ball pitcher to develop into a good big leaguer. The walks and command issues are concerning, but plenty of pitchers improve their command from the time they were in A-Ball. Reyes certainly wouldn’t be the first pitcher to cut down on his walks as he learns the nuances of pitching. Circling back to the comps, both Matt Moore and Chad Billingsley struggled with walks in A-Ball, yet still managed to be effective before injuries derailed their careers.

Furthermore, Reyes is still relatively new to pitching. He was primarily an infielder as a high schooler in New Jersey, and didn’t switch to pitching full-time until he moved to the Dominican as a 17-year-old. Reyes very well might be at an earlier point on the learning curve than most 20-year-old hurlers, which might be a point in his favor in terms of developing command.

Reyes still has a lot left to prove, but his prospect trajectory is clearly on the rise. Kiley stated a few weeks ago that he bumped the 20-year-old’s FV from 55 to 60 due to his tremendous start. Kiley told me the other day that he may bump him up even further by year’s end, so long as he keeps pitching well and shows good-enough command.