Jose must go

By Adam Cancryn

Jose Reyes was the best thing to happen to the New York Mets in more than a decade. But if the team wants to win that elusive championship, they must first part ways with their mercurial shortstop.


It will not be an easy breakup, nor a popular one.


More than any other individual in the past decade, Jose Reyes has become synonymous with the New York Mets. He is the youthful face, churning legs and whip-quick arm of the team’s most exciting and optimistic period since the late 1980s. The homegrown jewel developed through a farm system where, far too often, the growing stops somewhere around AA Binghamton.


Despite Reyes’ contributions, though, nearly every October of the past eight years has come and gone without him. Outside of a 2006 season in which the improbable trio of Suppan, Molina and Wainwright knocked the NL-best Mets out in the NLCS, just the opportunity to play for baseball’s top prize has never been within reach.


This is not a problem that can be pinned fully on Reyes. Baseball championships, perhaps more than any other sport, are won through the timely contributions of the stars on down to the last man on the bench, and the Mets have never been quite in sync.
But it is a problem that Reyes can perpetuate by remaining in New York.

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When Sandy Alderson arrived as the Mets’ new general manager, it was with the expectation he would redefine the organization’s overarching philosophy. Gone, supposedly, were the free-spending Mets, the ones whose splashy acquisitions won many back pages but little else. Replacing them were the shrewd, do-more-with-less Mets, willing to make the hard cuts and long-term decisions that keep a team on the track toward a championship.


This is not a novel approach. The previous two GMs set out on the same path. But in the process of developing the Octavio Dotel’s and Aaron Heilman’s into steady Major Leaguers, each gave in. Whether to the daily competition with the cross-town Yankees, the pressure to seal their legacy or the deceptive notion that just one impact player might put this team over the top, they all abandoned their level-headed ideology for the allure of a big-time move.


With Reyes, Alderson has already reached this moment. He can hold onto Reyes past the trade deadline, clinging to his centerpiece and hoping maybe, just maybe, everything will fall in line: a playoff push boosted by the dominant return of ace Johan Santana followed by a Wild Card spot and a deep run in the postseason all led by the ever-improving shortstop whose love affair with the City ends up maybe, just maybe, meaning more than the $140 million plus offered by far more established teams.


Or he can stay the course, a methodical, if tedious, route that has already purged closer Francisco Rodriguez and his $17.5 million vesting option in favor of 26-year-old Bobby Parnell. The route that led to eating the contracts of Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez for the good of the team. The route that has put the Mets in position to overachieve with a lineup featuring six players under 30 and a patchwork rotation, but more importantly, given those players under 30 and patchwork rotation a chance to prove their mettle.


Alderson can recognize that the chance to win with the Reyes-Wright-Beltran core is fading, and that to keep Reyes would mean sinking hundreds of millions into one position on a team with many larger holes to fill. He can recognize that this is the decision that determines whether the Mets are a fringe playoff team for the next few years before fizzling out, or whether they are ready to lay the young foundation for the next era.

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There is no guarantee that the three or four prospects acquired in a Reyes trade would bring a championship, or even that they would factor into a playoff appearance. The package might yield a few everyday players who toil for a half-decade and move on like so many forgotten Mets. Serviceable, but unremarkable.


They might tank, failing to ever come close to matching the value Reyes provided the Mets over even just a few seasons.


They might blossom to form a powerful core, one that the Mets can build around for the next decade, much the same as they tried to do with Reyes and Wright and Beltran. This time, it might even be successful.


Right now, however, there are just two alternatives. Hold tight to Reyes, and hope the old guard can recapture the magic. A World Series appearance would be nice, but given the state of the team, most fans would settle for some meaningful September games and the pleasure of watching their shortstop hit second and, with a lopsided gait equal parts violent and effortless, dig for third.


Or let him go, stocking the team with new blood and proving it’s possible to push past the daily struggles and keep focused on the ultimate prize in the distance, even in a city as distracting as New York.


It is no easy choice. But that’s the thing about breakups. They’re hard, and often the best solution is to keep a stiff upper lip and move forward with the confidence that, as good as it was, the best is yet to come.