ESPN – Has Jose Reyes Reached his potential?

In a recent column on ESPN.com from Buster Olney talks about our injured SS – Jose Reyes:

Mets must face possibility that Reyes has peaked

Some excerpts from the column:

There are talent evaluators with other teams who have their doubts. They see a diminishment of range, for whatever reason, and some signs of erosion in his defensive play. They point out that even at its highest, Reyes’ on-base percentage still falls in the range of .355 to .360, which is good but far from the level of an elite hitter — and they wonder if he’ll actually get better.

Admittedly Reyes could show a bit more plate patience as a leadoff hitter – but it IS something that we’ve seen some signs of improvement.  Some ‘scouts’ however disagree:

“I don’t see a lot of evolution there,” said one scout this week. “Jimmy Rollins struggled early in his career, but then he just kept getting better and better, and I’m not really seeing that in Reyes.”

The column goes on to say that Reyes is already a good player without question however it concludes that his taking the next step is in question:

Waiting for Reyes to develop into a superstar might turn out to be their search for the great white whale; there’s a chance that it might never be satisfied. He might already be as good as he’s going to get. Going forward, the Mets should not assume that Reyes is going to be an unmovable foundation piece. They should not assume that they can count on greatness from him, because there have been too many periods when he has been much less than that.

I’ll admit – my first reaction to this column was outrage.  Reyes is already an All-Star, a game changing base-runner, and a plus SS (when he has his head in the game).

However like most Mets fans – I see in Reyes a higher ceiling than any other Met including David Wright. With his speed, athleticism, and even power potential that he’s flashed – he’s a player that seems on the brink of doing something extremely special.

And yet we seem to get extremely frustrated with him (as a fan base) when he goes through slumps – or when his enthusiasm and aggressiveness lead to bad baserunning mistakes – or when he flys out with no one on instead of putting the ball on the ground and using his god given blazing speed to get on base.

When’s the last time you heard a full blown Jose chant?

This is just an open question – but what do you think Mets fans?  Have we seen the best of Jose Reyes or is there more yet to come?