In Defense of Jose Reyes

Derek Jeter is still getting most of the attention in the headlines, but since the Mets picked up Jose Reyes' 2011 $11M option, he's getting his share of the spot light.  For better or worse (I'll take the latter), Mike Lupica has chirped in:

I will continue to defend Reyes' on field
performance but this is indefensible.

There was a time when we thought Reyes would be a $20 million shortstop by now. He isn't close. He will be overpaid at $11 million. He played 133 games last season, but played just 36 the year before. All of a sudden he moves up on a ninth season with the Mets, and they may be perfectly willing to let Reyes play this thing out, go through his walk year without a contract extension and risk losing him as a free agent when the year is over.

Lupica is right, Jose Reyes played in 133 games last season and 36 the year before.  He's wrong however, to say that he will be overpaid at $11M.  If we do a little FanGraphs check we can find that Reyes had 2.8 WAR this year and according to their conversions, guess what that translates to in dollars and cents: $11.1M. Reyes, even in his oft-injured state, is still a valuable commodity, not an overpaid enigma.

Also, "there was a time when we thought Reyes would be a $20M shortstop", because HE ALREADY WAS one!  From 2006-2008 Reyes averaged over 5.7 WAR per season with the value of his production equaling over $20M each season.  Over the past 3 calendar years there have only been 5 shortstops that have been more productive than Reyes.  That's of course including 2009, the year when Reyes only played in 36 games.

Listen, just because Jose Reyes can be significantly better than he was last year doesn't mean that he's overpaid.  By his standards Reyes certainly had a down year, but he's still better than 3/4 of the players at his position and that has a lot of value.  The Giants gave Edgar Renteria $18.5M for 2 years when he was 32 with zero potential, I find it hard making a case that Jose Reyes at 27 would be overpaid at $11M.

Sandy Alderson is going to let Reyes play it out because that's the smart move.  Before the Mets hand over what will likely be a very large check to Mr. Reyes they'd like to see what they have.  Although Reyes remains an injury risk, what he did last year should be seen as a baseline of what to expect.  While missing almost 30 games last year with a decreased walk rate, and a dip in his speed Reyes was still solidly above average at shortstop.  He has the potential to be much more like he was in 2006-08 which makes Reyes at $11M is more of a bargain if anything.