Remove the names of the parties involved, and you might think you know how it’s going to end. Picture a star player in the last year of his contract, having a ridiculously productive season on a team that is a) already 9-1/2 games back, b) probably not going to spend a lot of money in the offseason, and c) owned by a man who has publicly scoffed at the kind of contract the player thinks he is going to receive.
Jose Reyes And The Trade That Probably Won’t Go Down
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If Jose Reyes were on the Marlins, Astros, or Orioles, there is no way that Jose Reyes Banner Day would be scheduled for the week after the trade deadline. Reyes would be gone by then if he were on the typical non-contender.
But the Mets aren’t the typical non-contender. They’ve never been the Yankees when it comes to free-agent spending, but they've generally gotten who they wanted. The Mets’ outfield makes more than the Royals’ 25-man roster, mostly because the Mets outbid the world to acquire Jason Bay and Carlos Beltran. Their fans expect good players. If there aren’t any good players on the team, their fans expect them to be bought in bulk during the next Costco run.
There are arguments to be made for not re-signing Reyes The Mets might not want to commit $100 million to Reyes because they’re concerned that he’s not going to age well, that he’ll have lingering problems with his hamstrings, or that he’ll eventually have to move off shortstop.
There are a lot of reasons why the Mets might want to trade him. It’s true that most prospect-for-star trades don’t bring a fair return, but a team can always dream of scoring a Teixeira-like deal -- the kind of trade that can set a team up at multiple positions for years. Of the top 10 prospects in the Mets’ system according to Baseball America, only Matt Harvey and Kirk Nieuwenhuis are having standout seasons. It’s a thin farm system that could use some quantity of quality when it comes to young players.
But a Reyes trade wouldn’t just be an nuts-and-bolts, add-up-the-potential-WAR kind of deal. It would be a trade that said:
We were a team that could pay whomever was available to build around Jose Reyes and David Wright. Now we’re not really willing to pay to keep Jose Reyes.
That’s not entirely fair, but that will be the message. Reyes is a popular player. Rich teams keep their popular players. Derek Jeter never played footsies with the Rays; Paul Konerko wasn't flirting with the Tigers. It’s a PR disaster waiting to happen.
The only way the Mets can make a prospects-for-Reyes deal is if they can make a heist. Sandy Alderson needs to swing a deal that allows him to show up at a press conference lighting a cigar from the flaming head of one of the deal’s lesser prospects. He needs to be able to point to the Teixeira deal as a comparable trade without prospect mavens giggling.
Four teams. Maybe one or two of them fall out of the race by July 31st. Maybe J.J. Hardy becomes available, taking another team out of the Reyes derby. If I had to guess, I’d say that Jose Reyes will be around to enjoy Jose Reyes Banner Day, and that’s probably a good thing for the Mets -- even if they can score a nice prospect to help them win in 2013, regaining the trust of their fan base might be more important in both the short- and long term.
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