Victor Reyes (OF, DET) - Week 7 Waiver Wire Pickups

Brady Grove profiles under-the-radar Detroit Tigers outfielder Victor Reyes as a potential waiver wire acquisition of value for fantasy baseball leagues in Week 7 of the 2020 MLB campaign.

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ANALYSIS: 25-year-old Victor Reyes was never a top-rated prospect as he bounced around from the Atlanta and Arizona organizations before finding a home in Detroit, but he was able to earn a spot with the big league Tigers for the shortened 2020 campaign after an excellently well-rounded 2019 campaign with Triple-A Toledo where he posted 30 XBH (19 doubles, a triple, and ten HR), ten stolen bases in 16 tries, and a .304/.334/.481 slash over 289 AB.

99 AB in to the 2020 MLB season, and the native of Barcelona, Venezuela has translated his skill set nicely, recording eight XBH (five doubles, one triple, two homers), five steals (without being caught), and a slash of .283/.317/.414. He may not be slugging like he was in Toledo a year ago, but Reyes has made significant strides in his power game since his last major league showing, bringing his barrel rate up by 2.3% and his hard hit rate up by 12.1% since his 276 AB run with the Tigers last year. Additionally, Reyes is putting up career-high figures for hard contact rate (41.5%), soft contact rate (6.1%), and ISO (.146).

When you roll all of that growth together and add his 24.4% line drive rate and 9.1 speed score in to the picture, and Reyes's .338 BABIP seems like no big deal to keep chugging along through the remainder of the regular season. For a guy that swipes bags, you would definitely like to see better figures than his 3.7% walk rate and 19.4% strikeout rate, but as long as he can keep regularly reaching base via contact hitting to give himself a thief's chance and continues to broaden his slugging capability, Victor Reyes is an exciting 30/70 power/speed option in deeper formats.