Mark Reynolds is the current MLB leader in home runs (five) and RBI (12), so he probably deserves some dap. Still, things are getting a bit out of control, no? Recently I have heard a few people say things that seem somewhat overaggressive regarding predictions for Reynolds. Various experts have said that he will hit "40 homers" (heard it on Sportscenter today) and "50 homers" (Matt Williams, via CBSSportsline). Bob Melvin apparently even went so far as to refer to him as a young "Mark McGwire" during batting practice.Personally, I think it's all a little Gumby-esque (read: stretch, not cheap pizza) for my tastes. And I don't want to be the guy who comes along and tells everyone to ease up. Much less do I want to do something like compare Mark Reynolds to Chris Shelton. Because he's better than that. But I don't think he's going to be 40-50 homers good. Still, that's the type of pub he's getting right now, in this, the second week of the season.
He's absolutely not going to continue on this home run pace (if he does, I'll administer the HGH test myself), which means that his value has peaked right now. Even if he does hit 35 home runs, his average is going to drop significantly (he's at a small-sample-sized .348 right now) as is his OBP (currently .400). Maybe he is "making a jump" this season and will end up with 35 jacks. But by the time you end up moving him, he'll probably have already hit eight of those, which detracts from his value for the future (obviously, right? We all get that, I hope.)
Which brings me to my next point -- what do you get back for him? Ideally, you just find that trigger happy, prospect obsessed owner in your league and deal Reynolds and Johnny Cueto for Alex Rodriguez. Barring that, work up something else that involves Reynolds and a youngster like Cueto, or possibly a lower tier closer like Jason Isringhausen for someone like Mark Teixeira. (You could also use the soon to be jobless Eric Gagne -- at which point you should grab David Riske to offset your "loss" -- or the still kind of worthless Joe Borowski here, and would obviously prefer the closer to Cueto.)
Tex is hitting for a low average and even with only two home runs, well, his hype-meter is a lot lower than Reynolds right now. Izzy for some reason is white hot with fantasy owners, even though I thought he retired in 2005. Meanwhile, Reynolds is getting love from every major public website and television channel that remotely talks about fantasy sports, so the casual owner is gonna buy into that. It's your job to take advantage of that by stacking up your roster through a sell high 2:1.
