Through the first month of the season, Jose Reyes’ struggles were very clear. Reyes hit only .238 with a .295 on base percentage. Reyes simply did not look like the player he had been in the past.
People wondered what had caused Reyes’ struggles. Was it his thyroid problem? His new spot batting third in the batting order? Or was it that Jose was washed up?
It was not any of these things, although his struggles were tied to his thyroid problem. As a result of this issue, Jose missed most of spring training. This put him a month behind all of the other players in the league.
The Mets played 30 spring training games this year. It would have expected that Jose would have played in between 20 and 25 games during spring training.
Jose played his 25th game of the season on May 7th. If you look at the first 25 games of Jose’s season, you will see that Jose had a .236 batting average and a .281 on base percentage. He also had 12 runs scored, five stolen bases and nine RBIs.
In the 23 games Jose has played since that point in the season, he is hitting .283 with a .324 on base percentage. He also has 18 runs scored, nine stolen bases, and 12 RBIs during this span. The numbers that Jose has put up recently come much closer to his career numbers.
For his career, Jose is a .285 hitter with a .335 on base percentage. Jose also averages 15.9 runs scored, 8.5 stolen bases, and 9.5 RBIs for 23 game time periods over the course of his career.
Reyes has also been much more comfortable since returning to the leadoff spot. Jose has hit .294 with a .331 on base percentage and 13 RBIs from the leadoff spot in 26 games. In 20 games from the third spot in the order, Reyes hit .207 with a .253 on base percentage and six RBIs.
Jose had also gone from posting a -0.9 WAR on May 23 to having a -0.2 WAR right now. This is a massive change around for such a short time period.
Over the past two weeks, Jose has put many of the negative claims about him to rest. He has hit .358 with a .393 on base percentage and 12 RBIs during his last 12 games. While he cannot be expected to continue to hit at this rate, these numbers are very encouraging.
It seems that Jose Reyes’ struggles were tied to his missed time during spring training. Jose appeared to use April and early May as his spring training. Once Jose was able to get back into the groove of things he once again returned to being the player that he has been in the past.
The Mets need Jose to maintain his success if they are going to be a playoff team this year.
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