Former Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Mark Reynolds is packing his bags and taking his talents to Baltimore. That means the fans at Camden Yards will be seeing lots of home runs, and far more strikeouts from their new player manning the hot corner.
Reynolds actually finished the season under the Mendoza Line, batting just .198 due to a horrendous September slump. Reynolds is still a lifetime .817 OPS guy and has bashed as many as 44 home runs in a season. While his strikeouts will remain high because of his batting approach, he’s a good candidate for a bounceback year in Baltimore and should bash at least 30 bombs per season with the short porch in left field.
The Diamondbacks are getting two pitchers in return from Baltimore, David Hernandez and Kam Mickolio. Hernandez is a 25-year-old who was a starting pitcher throughout his career in the minors and was recently converted into a reliever this past year. He started 19 games in 2009 and posted a 5.42 ERA while he started just eight games last season and relieved the rest of the time. Hernandez gave up nine home runs in just 79.1 innings but moving to the NL West from the AL East should help his numbers.
Mickolio is a 26-year-old right hander who has relieved in parts of three seasons with the Orioles, though he only has 25 innings of big league experience. Avoiding the AL East bats should help his chances of succeeding, but he only crosses me as an average reliever at best. Arizona is merely getting arms while Baltimore is getting a third baseman who should crush the ball at Camden Yards. You’ll have to deal with the low average, but I like Reynolds’ chances of bouncing back.
