Mark Reynolds and Mike Matheny Are A Bad Combo

Sorry, meant for this to go online earlier this week, since i was going to be pre-occupied, so I scheduled it, but that didn’t work, so here it is now.

The Cards signed Mark Reynolds recently to be a right handed slugger off the bench, and at a good price, two million for one year.

All of that makes sense to me. After all, Matt Adams has a weakness vs. lefties, and both him and Matt Carpenter will need a break every now and then.

My concern lies in Mike Matheny’s preference of veteran bats over the kids. He overplayed Mark Ellis last year, who was really just supposed to spell Kolten Wong and be his mentor. That didn’t work out too well. The kid sat on the bench in the first half, was sent to the minors and only after regaining his confidence there did he return and play well. And if memory serves (it often doesn’t) Ellis got injured multiple times and sat out nearly the entire second half, forcing Matheny to play Wong once he was recalled. If Ellis had stayed healthy, Wong might have rode the bench upon his return.

Well, what if Adams gets off to a rough start? Will we get Matheneyed again and watch Reynolds start versus right handers too? The man strikes out a ton. Admittedly according to his splits, he’s pretty much the same versus both sides, which is to say, bad. He’s hit .229 with a .457 slugging percentage versus righties and .231 with a .458 slugging percentage versus lefties. The only real difference is OBP. He gets on slightly higher versus lefties at a .351 clip, as opposed to .314 versus righties. Still, both sides are bad. He’ll either homer, strike out (he’s struck out over 150 times a season six times) or walk.

All of this is to say that Reynolds should not be starting regularly.

I recently got to ask John Mozeliak some questions, and one of them I asked was whether Mike Matheny was consulted on player acquisitions, and he replied that he was. If I were Mo, before signing Reynolds, I would’ve asked Matheny this: “Mike, if I sign this guy, you’re not gonna pull an Ellis on me are you?”

Food for thought.

As always, thanks for reading.