We all love Jose Reyes and think he could be the MVP of the entire league someday, maybe even this year. But the NL is so deep in shortstops (four great ones in the East alone), that Reyes probably is not in the top two this year. He will probably make the team as the top vote getter but a look at the statistics shows that Reyes is not in the top two in any major statistical category.
Before we begin let me make a few disclaimers:
1) I am only including five shortstops in this discussion: Reyes, Rollins, Renteria, Ramirez and Hardy. The fact that Khalil Greene has 6 home runs is irrelevant to this discussion.
2) I am not counting stolen bases because we all agree that Reyes is far superior in that category. I am not including defense because other than some specious range indicators, analysis of defense mostly subjective.
3) These stats will definitely change during the 6 weeks before the All-Star game, and if Reyes gets hot again it will be quite possible to argue that he is the best of the bunch.
Runs Scored
Ramirez 43
Rollins 42
Reyes 39
Renteria 34
Hardy 32
Home Runs
Hardy 15
Rollins 9
Ramirez 7
Renteria 7
Reyes 2
Runs Batted In
Hardy 43
Rollins 30
Renteria 27
Reyes 24
Ramirez 12
Batting Average
Ramirez .320
Renteria .320
Reyes .312
Hardy .299
Rollins .275
OnBase Plus Slugging
Hardy .926
Ramirez .914
Renteria .875
Reyes .870
Rollins .825
Based on my analysis right now I would say in order the NL shortstops having the best year so far are:
Hardy
Ramirez
Renteria
Reyes
Rollins
Labels: analysis, reyes, stats
