Projecting Matt Reynolds, Ruben Tejada’s Replacement

And I thought I was done writing about prospect debuts for the year. With Ruben Tejada out of commission following his controversial rendezvous with Chase Utley, the Mets added 24-year-old Matt Reynolds to their NLDS roster for tonight’s game. Tonight marks Reynolds’ first time on a big league roster, so assuming he gets into a game this October, he’ll accomplish the rare feat of making his big league debut in the playoffs.

As you can probably imagine, this doesn’t happen all that often. Reynolds would be only the second player in modern history to break into the big leagues during the postseason. The most recent case was Mark Kiger, who debuted as a defensive replacement for Oakland in the 2006 ALCS. The only other case that I’m aware of happened in 1885, when some guy named Bug Holliday did it. There was also Chet Trail, who was on the Yankees 1964 World Series roster as a “bonus baby” due to a technicality, but never got into a game. So, yeah, this is an oddity.

Reynolds spent the 2015 season in Triple-A Las Vegas, where he hit .267/.319/.402 in 115 games. There wasn’t much remarkable about Reynolds’ minor league line this year. His power and walk numbers were both worse than the PCL average, and he struck out a bit much for someone with so little else going for him offensively. He showed a touch of speed with his 13 stolen bases, but not enough to really get excited about. For what it’s worth, he hit a much better .335/.395/.444 in 2014, when he split time between Double-A and Triple-A, although those numbers were inflated by a .407 BABIP. If you strip away some of that BABIP luck, Reynolds’ 2014 numbers look awfully similar to those from 2015.

Due to his unremarkable stat line, KATOH isn’t particularly enthused with Reynolds’ game. My system pegs Reynolds for just 1.4 WAR through age 28, and gives him just a 8% chance of accumulating even just 4 WAR over that span. The statistical comps, calculated by way of some Mahalanobis distance calculations, share KATOH’s pessimism.

The standout names here are Craig Counsell and Brendan Harris, who both had runs as productive everyday players. Those would be solid outcomes for Reynolds, but it’s pretty clear we’re looking at a player without much star potential here. Reynolds’ upside seems to be more along the lines of platoon shortstop or utility infielder — not unlike the role into which the Mets are thrusting him right now.

The Mets Triple-A affiliate wrapped up their season back on September 7th, meaning the Reynolds hasn’t played in an actual game in over a month. He’s reportedly spent the past week working out at the Mets training complex in Florida, so it’s not as though he hasn’t done any baseball things since then. But still: it’s been a long time since he’s seen any game action, and he’s literally never seen any big league game action.

Despite his lack of experience, Reynolds might be the most logical addition to their roster given the team’s needs. Wilfredo Tovar is sidelined with a shoulder injury, and the only other middle infielder on their 40-man roster is Dilson Herrera, who’s played very little shortstop as a pro. Although Herrera’s almost certainly the better prospect and better player, they seemingly to want someone who can give them solid defense at short to back up Wilmer Flores. So enter Matt Reynolds.

If the Mets have their druthers, Reynolds won’t play much of a role this October. Flores will get all of the starts at shortstop, while Terry Collins will save Reynolds for emergencies, or perhaps late-game pinch-hitting or pinch-running situations. Still, Reynolds is on a playoff roster, and that means he might be part of a mission-critical scenario on any given night — all of this more than a month after he thought his season was over. Reynolds may not be all that interesting of a prospect, but due to unusual circumstances in the Mets infield, he finds himself in a very interesting spot.