I am writing for two reasons. One, because Reynolds continues to hit like a beast, hitting his 38th HR of the season yesterday. Two, I have to admit I made the biggest keeper raise blunder ever, by not raising Reynolds before the UBA draft back in April. I went back and forth bout giving him a $5 raise or not. I read too many negative stories about him, that I decided not to raise him. Let this be a lesson-let the numbers decide whether to raise a player and not anything you read out of the mouth of the players manager.
OK. So, Reynolds belted his 38th HR of the season yesterday, giving him 83 RBI, 21 SBs, and a .285-.376-.600 slash line. Reynolds is on pace to go 51-112-108-29. By comparison, the projected #1 pick Albert Pujols is on pace to go 52-142-127-15, while Hanley Ramirez is on pace to go 25-114-106-30. Now, both Pujols and Ramirez hit for a better avg. than Reynolds, but Reynolds is on pace for 50-30.
50-30!
When was the last time someone accomplished that? Via Wikipedia, only four players are members of the 40-40 club:
Year | Player | Team | HR | SB |
---|---|---|---|---|
1988 | José Canseco | Oakland Athletics | 42 | 40 |
1996 | Barry Bonds | San Francisco Giants | 42 | 40 |
1998 | Alex Rodriguez | Seattle Mariners | 42 | 46 |
2006 | Alfonso Soriano | Washington Nationals | 46 | 41 |
And then this from Baseball-Reference:
The rarer 30-40 season has been repeated only by Bobby Bonds (4), Barry Bonds (2), and Alfonso Soriano (2), the 40-30 season only by Barry Bonds (2) and Jeff Bagwell (2), and only Barry Bonds and Alfonso Soriano have had at least one 40-30 and one 30-40 season. There have been only two 30-50 seasons (Eric Davis and Barry Bonds), and no 50-30 seasons.
So there you have it, NO ONE has ever gone 50-30 in a season. Could Mark Reynolds accomplish this feat in 2009? Of course!!! I didn't give him a $5 raise in UBA this season.