Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Watch Out! The MLB Network has Harold Reynolds

I was watching clips from the newly formed MLB Network and they were a couple of clips about the Rays on their hot stove show. An interesting note that came up was the Rays could be a possible destination for free agent closer Trevor Hoffman. Joe Magrane thinks Hoffman has the stuff still to pitch but analyst Mitch Williams thinks it will be to hard for Hoffman to switch leagues this late in his career. It seems impossible for the Rays to actually sign him because they already have an aging, injury prone closer in Troy Percival.   

Their discussion was fine until Harold Reynolds started to talk and everything he said was from the perspective of a casual baseball fan. After the Joe Magrane was stating that the Rays have a young nucleus that could get better. Right after that Reynolds blurts out confidently:"A lot of career years for guys(Rays players)!"

This was the most false statement I have heard from these "analysts on TV." The Rays had only one maybe two career years on offense, Dioner Navarro and maybe Ben Zobrist(unless he gets more playing time). On the pitching side, J.P. Howell and Grant Balfour had their career years last season, but still should pitch at a high level. Reynolds was thinking that the only way the Rays got as far as they did was through the luck of having multiple career years, which is completely not true. That was one thing that irked me last year was that most Rays hitters and a few pitchers were under performing, yet they still made it to the World Series. Magrane later stated that this was the perfect storm for the Rays last year which came because of timely hitting, great pitching, and much improved defense. 

Link to the video.

4 comments:

  1. Good post. Harold Reynolds is a nice guy, but he is so underqualified to be a baseball analyst that it's ridiculous. I could care less that he was a replacement-level second baseman in the majors for a while, but he does not put enough research. Clearly, he did not understand why the Rays made it to the World Series--pitching and defense. MLBTV is a great idea, but the analysis is so thin that it makes Hot Stove tough to watch. I bet Harold could not even name a single Rays prospect like Wade Davis.

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  2. I agree, Reynolds is just a name, not sure how much he actually knows what is going on in Major League Baseball. He was alright before he got fired from ESPN, but he is just terrible.
    Those Hot Stove reports are hard to watch unless there are actually baseball writers on, who actually know this stuff for a living. Baseball analyst are better for analyzing the actual games and players not so much in the player personnel side.

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  3. Thank you for writing this. When I saw that idiot make that statement, I paused the DVR and made my fiance listen to me rant about how wrong that was for about five minutes, only to hit play and have Joe Magrane make the case for me in a rebuttal that lasted 15 seconds. I agree about your points I hope this show doesn't become like BBTN.

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  4. Like I said analyst that are former players shouldn't discuss player personnel or business. They need writers/bloggers to report and analyze because they know what was going on. That is why wrote this article.
    It drove me crazy too but I don't have MLB Network so I can filter Reynolds out and watch clips online, especially if they have Magrane.

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