5 players that the Cleveland Guardians should start worrying about
By Chad Porto
Franmil Reyes
Franmil Reyes is heading towards a career-high in strikeouts this year. If he hits 500 plate appearances, he’ll likely breach the 200 strikeout mark. He’s been awful all year, and save for one series against Toronto, it doesn’t look like he’ll be getting better any time soon. Reyes has always struggled with patience at the plate. In his two full seasons in the majors, he’s had 156 strikeouts and 149 strikeouts, respectively. In both of those years, he’s had more strikeouts than hits.
In fact, for his career, he’s got more strikeouts than hits.
This is who Reyes is, unfortunately. He’s only ever excelled in small sample sizes like when he was called up as a rookie or in the 60-game season of 2020. Ask him to play more than 100 games, and he’s hitting below .250 and striking out like it’s his job.
Reyes only has 11 RBIs, while Josh Naylor has 22 in just two-thirds of the at-bats. Even if we take out his last nine RBIs, which were done in the last two games he played in, he still has 13 RBIs in two-thirds of the at-bats.
This isn’t just an issue of Reyes being a streaky hitter. He’s simply a bad one. Jose Ramirez is kinda streaky. Yet, Ramirez isn’t perpetually killing an inning with ill-timed strikeouts.