Jose Reyes v. Barry Larkin

Inspired by a recent story about David Wright, I decided to make a back of the envelope comparison of Jose against the top tier SS talent from the last generation.  For Wright, the clear comp is Mike Schmidt; for Jose I'm going to use Barry Larkin because, like Schmidt, Larkin is considered by most to be a Top 10 All-Time talent at his position, as well as a clear-cut HOFer.  Also they have that similar all-around athletic game, offensively and defensively, similar very high ceilings and he's obviously got the requisite amount of star power.

So the question remains, how does Jose Reyes stack up against Barry Larkin at this point in his career?

 Well there's 2 ways to look at it.  First, we can see what each had done by age 26:

Reyes looks pretty damn good next to a future HOFer, and in many facets better, at the same age.  However, the counting stats are kind of thrown off since Larkin was a college product thus had less games played to this point.  Therefore, it's probably prudent to also evaluate them by looking at what each had done through his first 7 major league seasons:

This time games, PA's and AB's are much more balanced and again, Jose does pretty well for himself especially when you consider that at the end of this period Jose is still 2 years younger than Larkin.  It's actually pretty remarkable how similar their lines look.  Probably the most glaring lead Larkin has (not including HBP, which is pretty strange) is in RBI's, but that is due mostly to Larkin batting 3rd, and in OPS vs. the league (OPS+) but that shouldn't surprise anyone; in the late 80's and mid 90's the shortstop was a glorified pitcher at the plate.  For reference, here's the rise in shortstop OPS from then to now:

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Offense has most definitely improved by leaps and bounds from the SS position in the last 20 or so years so I wouldn't put too much weight into those OPS+ figures.  You do have to give Larkin credit that he dominated the field but consider this, during Larkin's career, the average shortstop hit just .256/.317/.361 giving you a .678 OPS.  In 2009 there were 21 regular shortstops with a higher OPS and 20 with a higher batting average.  So obviously with the shift towards offense in today's game it isn't quite as easy to dominate the position as it was in Barry Larkin's day.  

And to Jose's credit, he definitely is not one of those shortstops in today's game who sacrifices defense for power as he has always been a plus defender (~+5 avg. UZR in the past 4 years).  Obviously the same defensive metrics are not available for Larkin but as a 3-time GG winner, he seems to have that similar 'good (sometimes very good) but not great' defensive reputation as Jose.  So I don't see much distinction between them here.

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In closing, what I'm getting at here is that Omar better wake up and trade this cancer before he deludes the team any further.  If Reyes doesn't get his immature act together, stop dancing and performing handshakes he might only be the 11th best SS of all time.  Embarrassing.  Certainly not the kind of player Buster Olney would define as a star, definitely not one John Harper considers one of the best in the game and obviously no Jimmy Rollins.  And worse, if we've learned anything from Barry Larkin it might even take Reyes 'til his 2nd (or even 3rd!) ballot to reach the HOF.  Disgraceful.  </rant>  But seriously, health-willing, Reyes could easily give David Wright a run for his money in the 'Greatest Met not named Seaver' sweepstakes and unfortunately too many people lose sight of that.  Barring catastrophic injury or his skills leaving him extremely early, Jose should absolutely be a career Met.

UPDATE:  Just stumbled across this interesting little statistical note, in Larkin's entire 19 year career he topped 255 total bases just twice, both after age 32.  Reyes has already done it 4 times by age 26.  It's certainly cherry-picking to a degree but I just couldn't help myself.