The Mets are set to promote middle infield prospect Matt Reynolds to the playoff roster, according to Adam Rubin of ESPN.com.  Reynolds will take the place of Ruben Tejada who is done for the year with a broken leg.
If Reynolds sees the field in the postseason, he’ll have the rare distinction of making his major league debut in the playoffs.  Rubin, citing Elias Sports Bureau, notes that he would become only the second player in the modern era to make his MLB debut in the postseason.  In 2006, Mark Kiger of the A’s also debuted in the playoffs.  Reynolds will not step into the starting shortstop role, of course, as that spot will be filled by Wilmer Flores.
Rubin adds that the Mets quietly had Reynolds come to Port St. Lucie, Florida last week to work out and stay in baseball shape, just in case of such an emergency.  The 24-year-old (25 in December) hit for a .267/.319/.402 slash line with six homers in Triple-A this season while playing strong defense.
Following the 2014 season, Baseball America (subscription required) ranked Reynolds as the No. 12 prospect in the Mets’ system. Â BA praised Reynolds for his “hard-nosed, gamer approach” and his sure hands. Â While he projects as a solid defender all around the infield, BA noted that he could profile well as a second baseman at the big league level.
It’d be pretty great if this kid managed to play an important role in a Mets win, just to really stick it to Utley’s dirty play.
It’s called baseball… Play the game instead of complaint like Mutts fans
Utley’s slide wasn’t “baseball.” It was complete garbage.
So I guess hall of fame Cal Ripken and all the other major leaguers who said it was fine, know nothing about baseball then..
and all the other players like Pedro, Alex Cora, Jose Reyes, and many others who decried his BS play…what about them?
Yanks…. Obviously you live under a rock b/c just as many current players, ex players said it was a dirty play.
Players, fans and the media can talk about this forever, but in the end, only the rules and the judgement of the umpires on those rules really matters.
That’s funny. I remember you going on and on about the situation when Greinke was hurt due to “unwritten rules” BS. Kind of funny how those feelings change when one of your favorite players isn’t the one that got hurt.
No, I never said that, so the BS is yours entirely.
Mmmhhhmmm. It appears MLB does think the slide is illegal, so there you go. Suspended games 3 & 4.
Hmm. Torre in his statement also acknowledges that the umpires on the field make that call.
@yanks02026
Look at the still photos. Utley had only one knee on the ground when he collided, upright, with Tejada *beyond* the bag. Speaking objectively, I hesitate to call anything ‘dirty’ because it implies intent to injure, but at an absolute minimum, it’s not a legal slide.
Speaking as a fan, though, that play was complete garbage as Karkat says. There’s no place in baseball for that kind of nonsense. He ended Tejada’s season and possibly more (costing Tejada potentially millions of dollars) and nearly gave himself a concussion. ‘It’s called baseball’? It’s barely even football.
The umpires had the opportunity to make an interference call based on the current rules. So as I said, the only way to reduce or eliminate takeout slides (assuming this is a good thing for baseball) is to change the rule such that umpires would be required to call interference whenever a baserunner is sliding outside of some predetermined area. How you create a rule is not so easy as some think or it would have happened already.
The slide was by definition legal, and that’s why the appeal overturned it and they’re focusing on changing rules. Breaking up a double play is part of baseball and Utley is one of the more respected vets in the MLB, and obviously had no intent of injury. Clean slide with an unfortunate outcome.
Between what happened to Kang and Tejada I think we will definitely see rules being made on takeout slides next year. I think it’s one thing to try to break up a double play in your normal slide into second, it’s another to purposely wait to slide late and miss the bag entirely to take out the guy at second.
I agree. And it’s because slides like this that we have to have the “neighborhood play” which is the worst rule in baseball.
Really? So if you take away the neighborhood play, and require that baserunners slide directly into 2B, this reduces the risk of injury to the middle infielder?
Absolutely. Player’s can easily make a play and get off the bag, just as in the play we’re talking about here. The problem is when they get 5-6 feet away from the base, or behind the base, and are still getting taken out.
If the infielder must be in possession of the ball when they touch the base, which they are not required to do now when the play is considered routine, and the baserunner must slide directly into the base, then just as many collisions will happen, but they will at the bag. Again if it was a simple fix it would have happened already.
Probably. Joe Torre has said almost as much.The problem is creating a new rule around the neighborhood play and the official challenge. The former is supposed to protect middle infielders. Formulating a new rule isn’t going to be easy and is likely to create as much confusion at least initially as the new plate-blocking rule did when it was instituted.
Kevin Kiermaier made his ML debut in game 163 for the Rays a couple of years ago