Mark Reynolds is one of the Diamondbacks' few bright spots this season -- along with Dan Haren, Max Scherzer, and Justin Upton -- and RotoSavants' Troy Patterson is happy to remind us that he called it. How is Reynolds doing it?

Reynolds

His plate numbers haven't changed much as he is walking at a 11.6%, which is only up slightly from his 10.6%. Then his strikeout rate is similar to last year down slightly to 36.7% from 37.8%. Overall he is showing the same numbers at the plate, but it is concerning that his LD% is down to 14% from a career rate of 18.2%. This could lead to a lowering BABIP if it doesn't return to normal rates.

So what about the power? Last year Matt Williams made the comment he thought that Reynolds would hit 50 homers some day. What scouting or info he based this on I don't know, but he sure looks smart right now. He won't reach 50 this year, but a 40 homer season is within his grasp. He does have a 38% rate of Just Enough homers which is a bit high, but even a final count of 35-38 homers would make a great return on your investment.

Line-drive percentage. Batting average on balls in play. Just Enough homers. Can you believe the things we're talking about these days. Something I don't know, but would like to ... Has anyone pulled all these things together yet, in their efforts to build perfect projections? I suppose that I'm dating myself, but it really doesn't seem all that long ago when a) trying to project performance was considered somewhat radical, and 2) the height of sophistication involved using five or six statistics from the previous three seasons.

Seriously.

Anyway, Reynolds is probably a little bit over his head this season, but he's only 25 and is pretty obviously going to enjoy a number of fine seasons. The biggest differences between last season and this season are that his line-drive percentage is significantly lower (as noted above), his fly-ball percentage is significantly higher, and a significantly higher percentage of his fly balls are flying over the fence (perhaps due to luck, as manifested in those "just enough" home runs; with eight of those, Reynolds is second in the National League.