But I think its important not to take this as “Reyes needs to steal 60 bases a year to be productive” so much as “Reyes needs to play good defense, get on base at least 35% of the time, and play a full season to be a difference maker”. If he does those things and steal 40 or even 30 bases, he’d be just about as valuable. In fact he might even be more valuable if it meant his CS% went down.

because in his last full season, Jose was the 2nd best shortstop. With a .366 wOBA, second highest in the league

Are we trying to kill the kid?

a lot of Reyes’ value is in his legs. The stealing is important, but more important is his ability to beat out grounders, stretch singles into doubles, doubles into triples, go first to third, score from first on a double, cover a ton of ground on defense, etc. The stolen bases are a sexy reminder of his speed, but his speed comes into play in literally everything he does. His slugging percentage and BA would both suffer if he’s limping around out there, and if his average goes down, his OBP won’t really be acceptable for a leadoff hitter anymore.

Hanley Ramirez is THE obvious one. Jimmy Rollins? Eh, the jury is still out on him, I would say. His numbers are a little better than the average player, on the offensive side, and his Fielding Percentage is surprisingly lower than I thought it would be- asides for his one big year in 2007, which really wasn’t all that MVP worthy, I don’t see anything that Reyes can’t do, and he’s younger. Troy Tulowitzki is also in the same boat, more or less, except with a bit more pop. Who else is out there, in the NL, that might also be in the discussion?