Joe Morgan is an idiot

Sorry to state the obvious.

Last night he was talking about the Mets and how Jose Reyes and David Wright were possible MVP candidates. While both are having really good years Obviously Wright is a much better player but not too Morgan. With the speed Reyes has he can do more on the base paths. Finally, he makes a decision and decides that Wright is the better player because he drives in more runs while Reyes scores more runs. He goes on to so that it is harder to drive in runs than to score runs.

He doesn't back this up with any statistical basis but just that we should believe him because he is a Hall of Famer.

He goes on to say that Reyes was even a great player before this year. He says this because he can score more runs when he gets on base because of his speed. So are we to believe that a .300 OBP is valuable leading off because he can steal bases.

Doesn't he understand that you must actually be on base to score?

Also, getting on base means you are not making an out. If you are not making an out you are continuing a rally, even if you do not score or get an RBI you are adding value to your offense.

Last year Reyes had the most ABs in the league and had only 99 runs scored which is 26th in the majors. That is not a very good percentage of plate appearances to runs scored.

Such notable speedster Like Ortiz, Texeira, Ramirez and Dunn scored more often then Reyes did last year.

I will agree with Morgan on one thing, Reyes is having a good year this year. But last year he was a drain on his team’s offense and he was leading off.

According to Morgan, Reyes is great because he scores more when he gets on than when some slow guy gets on base with a walk. That may be true but if he never walks he has a lot less chance to score. The player who is on base more will still score more because though his speed does not allow him to steal or take the extra base, he scores more often because he is on base more often.

Morgan is telling us that it is important to score more runs and that Reyes was the most efficient at it last year. Is that true? It depends on how you look at it.

I looked at the top players in runs scored (out of ease more than anything) and figured out who scored more runs per plate appearance. This seems the most efficient way to look at it.


Here is the top 40 players from last year, ranked on how many runs they scored per plate appearance. The 2nd column is Runs scored per time on base minus caught stealing. The 3rd column takes homeruns out of the equation. Finally, at that point Reyes is number 1. He indeed is the most efficient run scorer when he reaches base with out a homerun.

Hear are the rankings from last year.
PLAYER PA OB OB-HR
David Dellucci 1 1 6
Albert Pujols 2 16 20
Alex Rodriguez 3 17 26
Derrek Lee 4 24 33
Manny Ramirez 5 11 22
Johnny Damon 6 9 5
David Ortiz 7 28 36
Derek Jeter 8 15 14
Travis Hafner 9 32 34
Vladimir Guerrero 10 27 28
Adam Dunn 11 21 29
Marcus Giles 12 12 10
Grady Sizemore 13 5 8
Chone Figgins 14 7 2
Jeff Kent 15 22 21
Jimmy Rollins 16 6 4
Jason Bay 17 37 31
Gary Sheffield 18 26 25
Michael Young 19 33 19
Miguel Cabrera 20 35 30
Mark Teixeira 21 30 35
Hideki Matsui 22 25 18
Richie Sexson 23 29 37
David Wright 23 34 23
Ichiro Suzuki 25 13 11
Felipe Lopez 26 18 17
Alfonso Soriano 27 2 15
Chase Utley 28 31 24
Carl Crawford 29 8 7
Craig Biggio 30 4 12
Paul Konerko 31 36 39
Bobby Abreu 32 39 32
Edgar Renteria 33 14 9
Rafael Furcal 33 20 13
Andruw Jones 35 19 40
Brady Clark 36 23 16
Brian Giles 37 40 38
Juan Pierre 38 10 3
Jose Reyes 39 3 1
Raul Ibanez 40 38 27

The problem is that Reyes obviously doesn’t reach base enough. He would be a great player if there were no such things as homeruns. But it is not 1968 anymore. Homeruns are part of the game so Reyes did not add any value to his offense last year. In fact he hurt his offense.