Reyes Update

For the past couple days, the Jose Reyes rumor mill has been re-ignited.  Reports yesterday from Sports Illustrated’s Joel Sherman said that the Milwaukee Brewers will meet with Reyes’ agents sometime this week. Early signs have made it appear unlikely that the Brewers are seriously pondering a Reyes signing, and up until now the Mets and Marlins have been the only two teams seriously in the running.

The Marlins have also upped their game and, according ESPNDeportes, increased their offer $111 million over 6 years. This offer had many sources saying that an official Reyes-Marlins signing is extremely imminent, and could come as early as tonight. Adam Rubin of ESPN New York has stated that when questioned about rumors of the Marlins’ new offer, Sandy Alderson responded that if the Marlins’ reported offer is accurate, then the Mets are out of the bidding. Not long thereafter, Buster Olney of ESPN said that the Marlins have finalized a deal with Jose. 

Many other sources have come forward reporting a Marlins-Reyes agreement, but as we’ve seen before nobody can be %100 trusted in this business. 

Reyes Rumor Roundup: Tweet Style

The “Jose Reyes Story” literally began the minute Reyes became a free agent. According to the Miami Herald the (at the time Florida) Marlins contacted Jose at 12:01 on the first morning of his free agency. Among all the teams to have contacted him, the Miami Marlins appear the most serious. The second and third teams in the running as of now appear to be the Mets and Milwaukee Brewers respectively. However, Brewers general manager Doug Melvin clarified today that the team’s active pursuit of Reyes was simply rumor.  “One phone call. No numbers” said Melvin, according to Adam Rubin of ESPN. Rubin first reported this in a “tweet”, the apparent new mode of communication of baseball rumor and report.

What really ignited the twitter and media frenzy over Reyes was this “tweet” by Dino Costa of Sirius XM:

This “tweet” preceded numerous “tweets” and statements from just about every major baseball journalist. Many of these simply “re-tweeted” the original Dino Costa message, creating a mixed state of confusion and misinformation. I say “misinformation” because, well, Jose Reyes is not currently a Miami Marlin, as clarified pretty clearly in this tweet by Joe Capozzi of The Palm Beach Post.

This tweet only added to the frenzy that had engulfed the baseball community, yet turned out to be correct. No Jose Reyes contract is official, although one could easily be imminent, most likely with the Marlins. The Marlins have apparently been very adamant in their pursuits of Reyes. Kevin Burkhardt of SNY confirmed the suspicions today with this tweet:

The parameters of Reyes’ desired deal are slowly being shaped, but it seems one number is really what Jose is looking for, at least according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post:

Many journalists had said that a deal with Miami was solely contingent on Hanley Ramirez switching positions, which Burkhardt elaborated on today:

Adam Rubin delivered the only bit of positive information to come out of this whole situation, from a Mets fan’s perspective, once again via tweet.

This is amazing news for the Mets, as it means that Reyes isn’t as close to signing with another team as the baseball community has thought. This also indicates that Sandy Alderson has talked at least with Reyes’ agents in the time since Jose met with Miami. Before today, Alderson had said that he hadn’t spoken with Reyes or his agents since their preliminary meetings.

To this point, not much is certain about Reyes other than the parameters of his preferred contract. Right now a deal with the Marlins looks more likely than one with the Mets, though only time will tell.