Brady Anderson Teaching Mark Reynolds To Not Strikeout

Well, well. It looks like former Orioles star outfielder Brady Anderson has found a nice secondary career as a trainer/hitting instructor in Southern California. Working out in the sun all day sounds like a nightmare to me but I'm Irish and the most extensive lifting I do is moving a laptop around. I do some solid reps with six ounce adult beverages but that's just for tone not bulk.

Anyway, Anderson recently had a little Q&A with The Arizona Republic's Nick Piecoro and he spoke specifically about one of my favorite players...

Q: What have you been working on with Reynolds?

A: He gets himself in a situation where he's late, he waits until the last second and swings as hard as he can. That's a mechanical flaw - not him being stubborn. When you're late and you don't have proper rhythm and timing, you chase high fastballs with two strikes, you check swing and strike out on sliders in the dirt. ... It doesn't really matter that he strikes out. Sure, you'd like to eliminate them. You don't have to take them from 200 down to 100. Ideally with him, the difference in a tiny little incremental improvement, if he went from 215 (strikeouts) to 185 ... then the whole season changes.

I love Mark Reynolds but this is scary news for me. I spend way too much time during the season watching Reynolds' box scores awaiting just one more strikeout to crown him with another Golden Sombrero. He even won our first annual Golden Sombrero of the Year Award but, for some reason, still has not contacted me for his Off Base t-shirt prize.

Now, Reynolds is taking his Ks to Baltimore and has turned to Anderson for help. This is very disconcerting for me as I was fully expecting a 437 strikeout season against the power arms in the AL East. I'm no scout but in the 30 seconds that I took to skim this interview, it sounds like Anderson knows what he's talking about. Rhythm, timing and not striking out all sound like keys to not striking out.

I'm sure I've thrown around some perfectly unfounded opinions on Anderson's silly (steroidy?) 50 home run season but he only struck out over 100 times in just five seasons and his watermark was 111. Anderson was a 18.3% strikeout rate guy compared to Reynolds' fantastic (for me) 38.7% rate.

I'm not happy about this and will be monitoring the situation closely.

Mark Reynolds Moves Golden Sombreros To Baltimore

Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers dealt his free swinging third baseman to Baltimore for a pair of relievers to kick of the Winter Meetings. Mark Reynolds, still just 27-years-old, will provide some pop from the corner infield position as he's hit 32 and 44 home runs over the past two seasons. Unfortunately, the one thing he does better, much better, than hit home runs is striking out. Reynolds has struck out over 200 times in each of the last three seasons and is a good bet to continue that streak considering the quantity of quality power pitchers in the AL East. He could be looking at record shattering strikeout numbers in the near future. Of course, Reynolds already owns the records he'd be shattering but still...

Reynolds signed a fresh three-year, $14.5 million deal at the beginning of last season. But new GM Towers, seemed to be non too pleased with Reynolds' .198/.320/.433 line and 211 strikeouts. So Towers shipped Reynolds off to Baltimore for relievers David Hernandez and Kam Mickolio.

I have a special connection with Mark Reynolds because I document the great moments in plate futility here at Off Base. Reynolds won our first ever Golden Sombrero of the Year Award thanks to his four Golden Sombreros in 2010. He's a strikeout machine and a pure joy to cover. I'm looking forward to big swings and misses next year. The good news for Orioles fans is that I'll be covering your team more closely in 2011 and almost every post about Mark Reynolds will be accompanied by this picture of a drunk donkey wearing a sombrero.

Golden Sombrero Of The Year Award

It's just about award season and we've created some of our own. I poured through box scores for much of the season (we were born on 5/30/2010) to bring you some of the finest swinging and missing baseball had to offer. And boy, were there a ton of Golden Sombreros. You can see the list I compiled here. I seemed to lose a little steam writing them up there at the end, mainly because I ran out of pinata blooper videos.

I mentioned Mark Reynolds and Ryan Howard in the intro to every Sombrero post I wrote because, well, they're my poster children for strikeouts. And they didn't disappoint. It was a close race but there can be only one Highlander. After I collected all of the ballots (I was the only one that had one) and crunched some numbers (took a nap), I have the winner. Ladies and gentleman, your 2010 Golden Sombrero of the Year Award goes to Mark Reynolds. *thunderous ovation of missed claps* Here's the official ballot in case you were afraid of any shenanigans.

1. Mark Reynolds
Reynolds led all of baseball in strikeouts for the third straight year. He's also gone over 200 strikeouts in each of the last three seasons. And he set a personal best, striking out 42.3% of the time. He notched four Golden Sombreros and had the decency to wait for me to start this blog before he struck out four times in one game. And for that, I'm bringing back the drunk donkey.

After I finish this post, the donkey and I are splitting a box of wine and going cruising for ladies. Look out women of Baton Rouge, you're on notice.

Congratulations, Mark. Email me your address and shirt size and I'll get your prize in the mail.

2. Ryan Howard
Howard missed some time so he only finished 11th in all of baseball with 157 strikeouts. He did still manage two Golden Sombreos to go along with his August 24th Platinum Sombrero. While Reynolds is the king, my money is on Howard to give me that damn elusive Titanium Sombrero. It might happen if the Phils meet the Rangers in the World Series and Cliff Lee pitches 14 innings. A boy can dream, can't he? By boy, I mean grown man sitting in a basement with way too much Cheeto dust on him.

Sorry Ryan, there is no free t-shirt for second place or a donkey in a sombrero. You'll have to settle with a goat.

Thanks Holy Taco, I'll be stealing from you all next season.

3. Pedro Alvarez
Another rookie beats out Jason Heyward on one of my ballots. Heyward and Alvarez both finished with three Sombreros and, although one of Heyward's was a Platinum, I wasn't writing here when Jason picked up his first GS on April 9th. Therefore, it doesn't count. Plus Alvarez racked up the four strikeout games at a more rapid pace when he finally got the call. All right Pedro, you deserve something. Hey look, a cat in a sombrero!

That should just about wrap up our coverage of Golden Sombreros for the year. Better luck next year to you crazy free swingers but as long as Mark Reynolds is still getting plate appearances, well, you're just playing for second.