Jose Reyes Peaked at 23?

I'm know I'm late on John Sickles' Jose Reyes projection, but I never read it so it's new to me. It is crazy how in the '06 season Jose Reyes had surpassed David Wright in the minds of a lot of Met fans in terms of who is going to be the better overall player. While I do believe we all agree both will be tremendous players and perennial All-Stars, Reyes' ceiling all of a sudden seems limitless. There is talk in the papers about him not only surpassing Jeter in terms of his career, but possibly being better at this point in time. I'm not going to weigh in on that one, but it is nice that things like that can even be discussed.

Back to John Sickels' Crystal Ball. Jose Ryes had 99 runs in '05 and 122 in '06, but only manages to notch over 100 three more times with what should be a potent lineup behind him? He never steals sixty bases again, never hits seventeen triples again after doing it twice in a row and only hits double digits four more times, and only knocks 20+ homers twice. I do get the fact that he does this to only strike up some conversation and this has no significance on reality or is based on anything concrete, but Reyes' career seems a bit low to say the least. Anyway, if you have not checked it out, you should rummage through the comments. There are plenty of anti-Met people that chime in with ridiculous statements, but there is some interesting commentary in there in regards to the topic and it is good to read other points of views.

For me and my thoughts on the topic with no statistic relevance at all factoring in, I think he is going to be a five tool monster that can hit anywhere from first to third in the lineup and produce in any capacity he is asked too. He is going to steal more than 64 bases quite a few times, top twenty triples at least once, hit 20+ homers quite a few more times than two, top 100 runs perennially as does Jeter, and be a magician with the glove. Not that Sickels' career line for Jose is particularly bad, but Reyes is certainly looking like a rare talent that many teams have not come across and might not come across. This kid can be so good it is scary and he is just one of those guys who you need to watch daily to really understand what he is capable of.

Sickels also did David Wright a while back and was a bit more generous, but he has them both curiously retiring at 37 (Reyes) and 36 (Wright). These days, top tier players have the juice to play longer and these two certainly are athletic enough to make it past his predicted retirement ages. I do understand that you just cannot anoint anyone a future Hall of Famer until they show some longevity (see Mark Prior) and I think that plays a lot into his conservative estimates for Reyes and the semi-conservative estimate for Wright.