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.
So far this season he's batting .296 (the best of any Mets outfielder) and his glove and arm have both been stellar as usual. He's by far the best-fielding and best-hitting outfielder on the club; the only reason Collins has given to explain the decision is Lagares' cold bat in this past series against the Yankees.
