Jose Reyes Cumulative WAR Versus Other Shortstops

If he hits 260 then he might have a lot more to come

has had 4 seasons better than any Reyes has ever had, per fangraphs war. He has had 4 seasons of 6.2 or better, including one at age 32 and one at age 35 (his 7.4 WAR year last year). Reyes hit 6 WAR once.

Since Reyes first full season, 2005, he has been worth 20 WAR. This doesn’t count Jose’s partial 2003 and 2004 seasons. Jeter has been worth 23.2 in that same span. his age 31 to age 36 seasons (he turns 36 in June).

In his 4 fully healthy seasons of 2005-2008, Reyes averaged 4.8 war. In his 5 full seasons from 2005-2009, Jeter has been worth 5.6 war.

Jeter had great seasons at age 24 and 25 in 1998 and 1999, better than Reyes’s age 24 and 25 seasons in 2007 and 2008, per fangraphs.

Jeter has had better peaks. He had them at the same age, and even over the last few years his peaks have been better (just not in the same years). He has been less injury prone.

Leave the championships aside. Jeter has been a better player than Jose Reyes. Jose Reyes is a very good player, has had some great seasons, and still has time on his side. But Jeter has simply been a better player than Reyes over his career, and even over the last 5 years. Reyes was better than Jeter in 2007 and 2008, and then Jeter went and had a season better than Reyes has ever had.

I love Jose Reyes. I am not a Yankee fan. Maybe the MSM likes him for the wrong reasons, but he’s been pretty damn good and I don’t think Reyes is there, through this age or otherwise.

Also, maybe I am wrong here, but Jeter had 29 WAR through the end of his age 27 season, 2001. Reyes has 22.6, and he will be 27 by then end of this year. Reyes needs 4.4 more WAR, no, by year end? And he played 2 partial seasons at age 19 and 20, before Jeter made the bigs.

who ended up sucking ballz? I’m always wary of comparing a player ONLY to successful comparators, because the embedded message is that he’ll necessarily (barring catastrophic injury) continue the trajectory.

Jeter is historically good, he has outhit everyone since he started playing and Ichiro is probably the only player who has been able to collect hits at a pace equal to or (in Ichiro’s case) greater than Jeter. Jose can still make his own mark on the game but it will be different than Jeter’s, and that is fine because they are different beasts. Also, it can be argued that Jose still hasn’t had a defining season or string of seasons and that the best is yet to come.

and aware as well that even impressive stolen base totals are largely irrelevant when it comes to creating wins, I wonder how much Reyes’s career OBP of .334 and lack of any one outstanding feature to his game other than the stolen bases will get in the way of his making the Hall. With no gold glove (nor one imminent in his future), with an average glove according to most fielding metrics, with no better than a seventh-place MVP vote, with no claim to ever having been the best player on his team or to having been a difference maker in any Mets playoff push, I wonder if we’re severely overestimating Reyes’s shot at the Hall of Fame, at least according to how he’ll fare with the voters (as opposed to whether he’s genuinely deserving).