We spend a lot of time around here, rightly so, talking about a pair of No. 1 picks for the Tigers: Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson. There's a third we should start talking about more. Or maybe it's as simple as listening to Victor Reyes' bat, which continues to smack line drives across the field like a drum solo on loop.
With his latest barrage – 4-6 with five RBI in Detroit's win over the Brewers Tuesday night – Reyes is batting .303 on the season. Plenty of big-league players go a full season without a four-hit game. Reyes has two in the past four days.
But this isn't an entirely new trend. Reyes has been squaring up pitchers for the better part of three months in the majors. Over his last 80 games, dating back to Aug. 5 of 2019, Reyes is batting .323, sixth in the AL. The players ahead of him comprise a list of MVP candidates and All-Stars: Tim Anderson, DJ LeMahieu, Nelson Cruz, Alex Bregman and Jose Abreu.
And then Victor Reyes.
Victor Reyes!
"Oh, he's a player," Ron Gardenhire told 97.1 The Ticket Wednesday morning. "He can hit, and he can play some defense. He's got all the tools. I don't think this organization gets enough credit for this guy, bringing him over, getting him in a Rule-5 draft. We kind of hung with him the first year or two, but he can play."
So back to the draft. Back to 2017. Actually, back to 2011, when Reyes was signed as an amateur free agent by the Braves. He hit .291 over the next four years in Atlanta's system, before being traded to Arizona. He hit .302 over the next three years in that system, but never advanced past Double-A.
It's hard to fathom how a switch-hitter with such consistent bat-to-ball skills could languish for so long in the minors. Maybe Reyes didn't display the kind of power prioritized in today's game. (Maybe today's game should reconsider its priorities.) Whatever the case, the last-place Tigers pounced on Reyes in the 2017 offseason with the first pick from the rubble that is the Rule-5 draft.
And then they watched him flounder in the majors for the duration of the next season. It was their only choice. As a Rule-5 pick, Reyes wasn't eligible to be sent down. So the Tigers kept him in Detroit, where he hit .222 over 100 games, determined to see their experiment through. They were the perfect match, really, a kid who needed more time and a rebuilding team with all the time in the world.
They might be a match for a long while yet. Since assuming a bigger job following the Nick Castellanos trade last summer, Reyes, who's under team control through 2024, has been Detroit's most productive outfielder. Indeed, he's been one of the most productive outfielders in the game. Over the aforementioned 80-game sample, Reyes has the sixth-best WAR (2.5) among his AL counterparts.
The players ahead of him: Aaron Judge, Jorge Soler, Mark Canha, Mike Trout, George Springer.
And then Victor Reyes.
Victor Reyes!
"He doesn't walk or anything like that, but he gets hits and then defensively he can play anywhere you put him in the outfield," Gardenhire said. "And he's a fun guy. He doesn't let anything get to him. He strikes out, he walks back (to the dugout) and has the same attitude as when he gets a hit. We got a special player here and he's playing really, really good baseball."
Speaking of the perfect match, how about the one between Reyes and Gardenhire. You've got a manager who likes contact at the plate and speed on the bases, and a player who puts the bat on the ball and flies down the line. A manager who likes athleticism on defense, and a player who moves so gracefully in the outfield he can man all three spots. Gardenhire, regardless of the modern numbers, will forever value a .300 hitter. Reyes looks like he might hit .300 forever.
Let's get into the modern numbers, as long as we're here. While it's true that Reyes has an absurdly high BABIP of .397 over our 80-game sample, he also ranks first in baseball over that same span in line-drive rate. This year, he ranks 12th in the AL in BABIP and 13th in line-drive rate. So results that might otherwise look unsustainable are at least partly explained by tons of hard contact.
Reyes has this going for him, too: he's about to get even more playing time. He's already cemented himself in the leadoff spot. And with JaCoby Jones out for the year with a broken hand, Reyes will assume the everyday job in center field. It's a fitting turn of events for this surprising team, chasing down an improbable playoff spot with a Rule-5 pick leading the way.
Asked Tuesday night about the prospect of playing in center, Reyes said through an interpreter, "I've been playing all three positions in the outfield, and I'm comfortable with them. So it doesn't matter where the manager puts me, I'll be there and I'll be playing very well."
He has our ear. Now it's time to listen.
