Y2K 2008 Mets Preview: Shortstop

[Baseball can't start soon enough, and to get you ready for a full season of action, Y2K wants to help you meet the 2008 Mets. We'll break down a roster position each day heading into the opener. Today it's shortstop. The shortest shortstop I know? This guy, one of the best dudes around, still getting a shot at the pros in the Minnesota organization. I love him, but only the Twins...]

Projected starter: Jose Reyes

Age: 25
2007 line: .280/.354/.421, 46.2 VORP
2008 PECOTA: 728 PA, .290/.350/.438, 46.2 VORP

Backup: Anderson Hernandez
Age: 25
2007 line (AAA): .301/.339/.397
2008 PECOTA: 75 PA, .253/.299/.343, 0.4 VORP

Discussion
Well, that's interesting. Give or take a dozen stolen bases on the margins, PECOTA expects Reyes to be the exact same player he was in 2007, down to the decimal point. How curious. Overall, Jose was excellent, and is one of the top shortstops in the league. Nothing wrong with that.

But.

Take a moment here to acknowledge that above-average isn't the same as great. Really good and supremely exciting is a top-notch package, and one that most every team in the game would kill for. At the same time, it doesn't make you an MVP candidate, and it doesn't make you even the second-best shortstop in your own division.

Now, a perfectly fine response here might be, "Who gives a rat's tit?" An even better reaction would be, "Cheddar, please shove it up your ass." And it's true -- there's no reason particularly to give a rat's tit. Jose Reyes is the best base-stealer in the game, plays a premium defensive position, flashes a superstar personality, serves a magnet for babes and fans and songs and everything good about the game, and can hit to boot. Moreover, he's reached those near-Olympian heights after a devastating start to his career, an utterly terrifying run of injuries that earned him the name Mr. Glass and prompted Cheddar Ben to prematurely write him off as a complete failure. His is a heart-warming story of perseverence, dedication, good medical care, and the Mets have all of that wrapped up in a reasonably priced bow. Only a complete cur would find fault with that.

But.

You can agree with all that, and still be disappointedd that Jose might not turn out to be as good as we thought he might be. Remember, at this time last year, Reyes was coming off a stunning breakout campaign when he turned the baseball world on its ear by hitting .300/.354/.487 as a 23-year-old shortstop. It was stunning. It was exhilarating. Rickey Henderson was a God among men and a savant among coaches. Willie was a motivator par excellence. But for fucking Yadier Molina, the kid would have been the toast of the World Series.

Then ... nothing really happened last year. The status quo won. Stasis. He looked like a million bucks in April, slowed down considerably thereafter, and played so poorly (and with so little effort at times) he had to be benched in September. His approach was all over the place -- he was popping the ball up every third at-bat, refusing to run out grounders, uncharacteristic crap. George Vescey called him a "swaggering, helpless juvenile" in the Times, and if he was being harsh, it wasn't by much.

To be fair, it seems as if Jose realized something was off, and acted like it in the offseason, training like a demon and sporting the attitude we all want from him. This story cast Reyes in his home, seeming grounded and ready to compete.

"I'm going to take a couple days off because of how the season ended," Reyes said, looking ahead to 2008. "If I feel a little tired, I'm going to talk to Willie about it. I learned my lesson."

Later, in what seemed to be a reference to instances in which he did not run hard out of the batter's box, he added: "I know I have to put my mind more into it. Sometimes I felt tired and I still played, but I didn't perform. I feel strong in my mind. I think this is going to be a good year for me."

This is what we want. And 15 more years of that will make Jose Reyes a Hall of Fame candidate, the best shortstops in Mets' history, a player on the all-time stolen base charts, and everything else. But I'm still antsy about Jose coming up with the mid-career push into MVP territory, the several year track when he's clearly one of the best players in the game. Guys who are Hall of Famers have that run.

Roberto Alomar, Reyes' No. 2 comparable player, had the career we want from Reyes, and he ended up posting over-.400 OBPs and slugging over .490 five times, what with the four Silver Sluggers, two top-4 MVP votes, etc. A Hall of Famer with an HOF peak. Barry Larkin, Reyes' No. 3 comp, had the career we want from Reyes, what with the 1995 MVP Award, nine Silver Sluggers, etc. A Hall of Famer with an HOF peak. For all our ragging on him, Jimmy Rollins, the No. 4 comp, just had a dynamite season. The rest of the top 10 includes guys (Tony Fernandez, Paul Molitor, Ken Boyer) with multiple MVP-type seasons, not to mention Carlos Beltran, who shows up as No. 9.

My point, as an asshole, is that this would be a good time for Reyes to start showing some movement toward that peak. If it doesn't happen this year, that doesn't mean it won't happen in the future; another repeat of 2007 doesn't close the door on anything. But each year he doesn't mature into a super hitter makes the eventual transformation that much less likely. I'm completely a beliver in Reyes' ability to make that leap, while acknowledging that he could have a super career and continue to be a Shea/Citi icon without ever doing so. This is greedy, sure. But in this life, you can only hold what your hands can grab. Reyes, and by extension, Mets fans, could have it all, and you just can't say that about too many players.

And, also, BP says Reyes' No. 1 comp is Cristian Guzman. Let's not even go there.

As for Hernandez, he got some off-season action in with the Tigres del Licey of Santo Domingo, one of the two Domincan teams to go to the Caribbean Series this past year. It was quite jarring to come across him hitting in the No. 3 slot on my SNY over the winter. I'd be flipping back and forth between college hoops games, trying to choose between a pair of unpalatable Big 10 or America East options, and stumble across a random group of marginal big-leaguers throwing down in what looked like an oversized cockfighting arena. Gotta love the winter ball, especially when Willy Aybar and the good people at Banamex are prominently involved.

Anyways, if Hernandez ever hits No. 3 for the Mets it'll be because of a plane crash or a syphillis outbreak. The less we see of this guy, the better.