It was a bit of a surprise when the Phillies promoted Felix Reyes to the majors on April 18th. It was a major surprise when he batted cleanup in his first ever MLB game. It was downright shocking that he took Chris Sale deep in his first at bat.
However, everything that’s happened since is not too much of a surprise.
Reyes earned his call up by hitting .333 with 6 home runs through his first 18 games in Triple-A this season. But at the same time, he had an eye-popping 51.9% outside the zone swing rate
coupled with a 16.1% whiff rate. That chase rate is Reyes’ biggest weakness and it’s now being exploited to a major degree in the majors.
Reyes has swung at 55.6% of pitches he’s seen outside of the strike zone through his first eight MLB games. That would be far and away the highest in MLB if Reyes qualified, as the current leader is the Rockies Ezequial Tovar with a 48% rate. Since that first at-bat, Reyes is 3-27 (.111) with two singles and a double. He’s struck out 7 times and has yet to draw a walk. He provided a nice spark in one game but has been wholly ineffective since and has looked overmatched at times.
If the Phillies were to decide to option Reyes back to the minor leagues, the internal options to replace him aren’t very enticing. The first choice would be Otto Kemp, the man who was demoted to allow Reyes to come up in the first place. Kemp started the year 2-20 with 9 strikeouts before being sent to Triple-A. Since his demotion, Kemp is hitting .237 with a .625 OPS in 12 games with the Iron Pigs.
Another option would be Bryan De La Cruz who signed a minor league deal with the Phillies in November. De La Cruz has played 32 games with Lehigh Valley and is hitting .222 with a .672 OPS. He would need to be added to the 40-man roster if the Phillies were to decide to promote him to the majors. As of right now, the Phillies do have one spot remaining on the 40-man that could theoretically be used on De La Cruz. He also has an opt-out clause in his contract that can be triggered to make him a free agent at some point in the next couple of months if he does not make the roster.
Looking outside the organization, there’s players such as Mark Canha and Randall Grichuk that the team could take a flier on. Obviously, there are not many options when it comes to finding help for your roster in early May.
So, is it time to end the Félix Reyes experiment? If so, who should take his spot on the Phillies bench?
