Franmil Reyes Is a League-Winner Hidden In Plain Sight

May 1, 2021

Antonio Losada examines Cleveland Indians Designated Hitter Franmil Reyes' season to date and assesses his fantasy baseball value through April and for the rest of the 2021 MLB season.

The San Diego Padres signed Franmil Reyes to their organization all the way back in November of 2011. It took the Padres almost eight years and a season-and-a-half of playing time to move on from him, as they opted to include him in the Trevor Bauer/Yasiel Puig/Taylor Trammell three-team trade that included the Indians and the Reds.

The Minnesota Twins have a much more straightforward story with outfielder Byron Buxton, the no. 2 pick of the 2012 MLB draft, and a Twin ever since. Buxton debuted early in 2015 vs. Texas, went hitless, and it's truly been an up-and-down rollercoaster for the often-injured, always-hyped-and-promising Buxton in his six-and-change-years career.

Those two paragraphs considered, Franmil Reyes and Byron Buxton have pretty much nothing to do with the other one. On top of that, one is a massive 6-foot-5, 265-pound bomber while the other is a springy 6-foot-2, 190-pound sprinter. They can't look more separate in the physical spectrum, and Buxton is leading the league in fWAR with a 2.3 mark compared to Reyes' 0.6 wins above replacement. But when it comes to bang-for-the-back and ROI value, Franmil is lapping Bux and that should change any time soon.

Franmil Reyes Has Never Stopped Growing

Literally, and figuratively, Reyes has improved on a yearly basis. Seriously. There is this video from 2012 on YouTube where you can watch Reyes batting in which seems to be a completely different human being not even remotely close to having his current frame. He's a walking mountain these days. He's listed as an outfielder, and he's played near the fences here and there, but the truth is that Reyes is just your casual Designated Hitter these days and will be for the remainder of his career.

Oh, and Reyes is just 25 years old, just in case. I don't want to get you lost in my words, so let me summarize what Reyes has been up to since debuting back in 2018 in a very simple image:

That's correct. Reyes has had his peaks and valleys, and while he was absolutely fantastic in the middle part of the shortened 2020 season, he still had his lows back then. This year, though? Bonkers production never falling below an above-average 100 wRC+ from Opening Day on.

MVP-Comparable Numbers (Hello, Buxton!)

One month into the season, this is how Franmil's percentiles and hits spray chart are looking, per Baseball Savant:

Here are the same charts, only now depicting Byron Buxton's 2021, MVP-through-April-games, season:

To be fair, Buxton has been quite impressive in what seems to be (at least until he gets injured) his true breakout, always-promised magnificent season to date. He's into the 94th+ percentile in eight of the above categories, his fWAR mark leads the league--yes, even above Mike Trout and his best-ever version--and as long as he can stay on the field he should keep racking up numbers.

What about Franmil Reyes, though? Obviously, a DH is not as flashy as a center fielder as fast as they come, hyped for a decade and going, and now the no. 1 player of his own franchise. But that's what is making Reyes one of the best values for fantasy GMs out there: league-winning numbers flying totally under the radar in a few leagues.

Franmil Reyes is slashing .279/.308/.616/.924 through April in 23 games and 91 PA entering May. His BABIP, in case you're wondering sits at a reasonable (we're still one month into the season) .340, which ranks in the 80th percentile among players with at least 70 PA on the year. In fact, reducing that group of players to those posting OPS marks of at least .900 on the season, Reyes' BABIP is below-average and in the bottom half of that 36-player group.

Reyes is not lucky--Reyes is just bombing balls away on a daily basis.

Man Of The Two True Outcomes

This is nothing new to baseball. Walking, striking out, and hitting homers are the things that keep on giving. Sadly, Franmil Reyes is not here to help you get points on the first of those three categories (3.3 BB%) while he'd make a living off the last two (33 K%, 7 HRs on the season).

Those walk-strikeout numbers are a little bit of a concern, sure, but Franmil Reyes is making up for it thanks to boasting one of the hardest-hitting profiles in the MLB this season. Reyes is getting hard contact (batted balls at 95+ mph) on 61.1% of his batted balls through April for a ridiculous xSLG of .650 (94th percentile; .616 actual SLG). He's barrelling 24.1% of the time, and he's on a league of his own there.

It's pretty much all or nothing for Reyes, with the only blemish that he's hitting 1.18 GB per FB these days. On the contrary, he's turning 32 percent of those flyballs into home runs. These are all players with similar production levels to those of Reyes (min. 70 PA, 30 FB%, 32% HR/FB): Buxton, Aaron Judge, Fernando Tatis Jr., Mike Trout, Adolis Garcia, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Willson Contreras, and Shohei Ohtani.

In case you don't have the data in front of you, here is a handy table I have crafted:

Reyes is one of just two players still rostered in fewer than 90% of Yahoo leagues. Only Adolis Garcia has a lower rostership, yet he's stepped up to the plate 20 fewer times and all of his numbers are worse than Reyes' across the board.

Franmil is hitting bombs on a daily basis and is currently tied for seventh in the HR leaderboard with seven fence-clearing hits for an HR% of 29.2, the fourth-highest among batters with at least 24 hits through April.

One of the things I like the most about Franmil Reyes is the fact that the only pitch Reyes is struggling against is the cutter, which he's seen 21 times this season over 5 PA and which he has still to hit for a base hit, having struck out three times on 10 swings. Other than that, though, Reyes is doing it in all shapes and forms, and although his pulling tendencies are easy to spot and defensive shifts are always going to hurt him, he's still blasting the ball away with such force that the approach is working for him.

Conclusion

It is not a coincidence that Franmil Reyes goes by the nickname of "La Mole", the mass/lump. While Reyes is not going to hand you a lot of goodies when it comes to walking, stealing bases, and avoiding striking out, he's a force of nature with a potent triple slash-line, massive upside on the HR department, and very tasty numbers in both the Runs and RBI cats on top of that.

Among true DH, Reyes shouldn't fall below the fifth or sixth positional rank, and that is assuming Ohtani makes the list. Fangraphs has Reyes projected to a neat 29 home runs ROS for a total of 36 on the year to go with a .259/.324/.502 slash-line, a positively-regressed 8.5 BB%, and a lower 31.2 K%. All things considered, ZiPS projections have Reyes finishing the year producing above-average value with a 111 wRC+ and 1.6 WAR when all is said and done.

Reyes is the 44th-best player in Yahoo leagues and 26th-best batter, yet his 88% rostership is the third-lowest in that group of players only behind Nate Lowe (77%) and Eduardo Escobar (81%). This doesn't mean that you will find him available for free whenever you manage a squad, of course, but odds are that you can be lucky on that front or in the worst-case scenario pull off a trade that lands you Reyes and his low-maintenance, still-under-the-radar excellent production.

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