Fantasy Baseball: What happens with Jose Reyes? – CBSSports.com
Major League Baseball handed down Jose Reyes‘ suspension for his domestic violence incident this offseason, and it will see him forfeit his salary for the first two months of the season. Reyes will be eligible to return to action June 1, as he has agreed not to appeal the discipline.
With the Rockies‘ shortstop position seemingly set with Trevor Story, Reyes might not have a job waiting for him even when he is eligible to return. Still, Reyes is a talented enough player that Fantasy owners have to figure out what to do with him. There are three potential ways the Rockies can handle Reyes moving forward, so we’ll look at the likelihood of each and how Fantasy owners should approach them.
Scenario 1: Reyes gets traded
Even before the suspension was announced, ESPN’s Buster Olney had already reported that there are teams interested in trading for Reyes once he returns. According to FanGraphs.com, only 14 shortstops in baseball have made a positive offensive contribution so far, so Reyes would potentially represent an upgrade on roughly half the league. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that there might be teams interested in his services.
Of course, there are plenty of hurdles that would need to be overcome. For one, the league knows the Rockies are likely set at both middle infield positions with Story and D.J. LeMahieu, so Reyes currently looks like the league’s most well-compensated backup (more on that shortly). Reyes also hit just .274/.328/.378 last season, so he was hardly a difference-maker the last time we saw him. And that doesn’t get into how the suspension has almost certainly adversely impacted his value around the league.
Still, this seems like the most likely outcome, and the one that would be best for Fantasy players. Even in a down year, Reyes swiped 24 bases in 116 games last season, and it wouldn’t be totally out of the question for him to give 10 homers and 30 steals from the point of his return on. This is a sure-fire starting option at shortstop, and finding another home for him would create one more choice for Fantasy owners at a desperately shallow position.
Chance of this happening: 75 percent
Scenario 2: Reyes gets buried
Like I said, there’s always a chance the Rockies find a completely dead market for Reyes and are just forced to bite the bullet and keep him on the bench. This would obviously not be the ideal outcome, given Reyes’ salary and the Rockies’ low likelihood of contending, but it wouldn’t be a total surprise if this happened. This scenario would obviously leave Reyes as a Fantasy non-factor, but could also cut into the playing time of Story and LeMahieu enough to hurt. At least for a little while.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Reyes sits on the bench for the Rockies all season, starting once or twice a week and being happy. Even if Scenario 2 were to come to pass, it probably wouldn’t be a long-term solution. The Rockies may just have to pay Reyes to go away in this instance, either through a buyout or a straight-up, old-fashioned waive. In which case, the outcome is roughly the same as Scenario 1.
Chance of this happening: 23 percent
Scenario 3: Story gets benched
As good as Story has been, he has hardly been reliable. He leads the majors in strikeouts, and has slowed down dramatically after his ridiculous start. And even the power has slowed down of late, with Story hitting just .277/.333/.404 in May so far. Story had solid minor-league numbers, but was never considered a can’t-miss prospect, so it wouldn’t be a total surprise to see the bottom drop out.
But this one seems extremely unlikely. Story has earned himself a lot of rope with 11 homers in his first 33 major-league games, so we’d need to see a lot worse than what he has done in May for him to lose his job, I would bet. The Rockies are looking toward the future, and even if you aren’t huge on Story’s talent level, it’s hard to argue he’s not a much bigger part of their future than Reyes. Story would have to go on some kind of massive cold streak to lose his job. We’re talking, like, 0-for-40 over his next two weeks, or so. This one seems exceedingly unlikely to come to pass.
Chance of this happening: 2 percent
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