Go to a game at Citi Field one day. As far as baseball parks go—ranging from amenities to field visibility—it is all you could ask for. The architecture is beautiful for a baseball park. If you look at the stadium from any possible angle, the same thought jumps into the onlookers head: This stadium should host a perennial winner. The perennial winner is exactly what is missing from Flushing Meadows in Queens. The closest Citi Field gets to a perennial winner is the once a year trip that Raphael Nadal and Roger Federer make next door to the US Open.
My generation (i.e. those born in 87’ or later) has been subject to 3 common thoughts about the New York Mets: Hope, heartbreak, and disappointment. As far back as I can remember I would always somehow find a way to get myself excited for the Mets. That is until the start of this baseball season. This year I felt no excitement about the upcoming baseball season, no yearning to go to as many Mets games as I could. There are many reasons for my lack of excitement, but they can be summed up like this: Madoff, the disappointments of 2007 and 2008, David Wright forgetting how to hit in his mid 20s, and the fact that the marquee signings of the Mets offseason were D.J. Carrasco and Chris Young, I didn’t see much to look forward too. No matter how hard I tried to get excited—and I tried everything from reading fantasy projections for every player on the Mets roster to trying to devalue the rosters of other teams in the NL East—I just could not bring myself to care about the 2011 season…Fast-forward 2 months and, as usual, the Mets have found a way to reel me back in.
The Mets 5-13 start didn’t get me all too excited, it was the 6 game win streak that followed. All of a sudden I was having the annual irrational dreams of grandeur. Of course the Mets then, in typical Mets fashion, went on to lose the next 4 games. But for some reason this Met team doesn’t have any quit in it. I don’t know why. I don’t really think anyone knows to be honest. If you had told me at the start of the season that Ike Davis and David Wright would both miss 2 months, Justin Turner would be starting at second base, Jason Bay would have 10 RBIs in June, and Mike Pelfrey would be pitching to an ERA over 5.00, I would have told you they would be sitting in the basement of the National League. But for some reason their winning percentage has continued to hover near .500, and they continue to excite me day by day. The only reason I can think of for this unwarranted excitement is the reemergence of Jose Reyes as an elite shortstop. And that my friends is the problem…
The whole point of all my rambling to this point, was to convey the point that I have become excited about a team that I had previously no hope of getting excited for. However, no “professional” baseball people seem to think that there is any way that Jose Reyes will be with the Mets for the rest of the season. This seems to be the combined consensus of all of the baseball people that I have heard discuss Reyes this year: “The Mets are cash-strapped and can’t afford to re-sign him in the offseason, so they will likely trade him for a couple good prospects rather than get only 2 draft picks after the season.” The first thing that I feel after I hear comments like this is sadness. The second thing that I feel is rage.
The reason for my anger is two-fold. One part is irrational, the other part, to me anyway, based on common sense. The irrational part of my anger is the part that is sentimental. I’ve watched Reyes play since his rookie year. His entire career, to this point, all any Met fans have talked about was the limitless potential of Jose Reyes. While we were busy talking about his potential, two things were happening to Reyes simultaneously: he turned into an all star shortstop—not quite realizing the potential that he had been labeled with by the fans and media—and he had bought an annual timeshare on the Mets Disabled List. As Reyes’s career progressed and the Mets moved into Citi Field, all anyone could say about him was that if he could ever get fully healthy he would become an absolute superstar. For Mets fans, talking about Reyes’s potential was like being in a dream, it was nice to think about, but none of us ever thought he would realize the hype…And then this year happened. This is where my sentimentality makes me extremely angry at the prospect of either trading or losing Reyes via free agency. I’ve watched him for so long and dreamt about him doing everything that he is doing now—leading the NL in batting average, as well as having 19 SBs and 11 Triples on June 8th!—only to have it stripped away as it is happening. As a die-hard fan it is very disheartening to see one of “My Boys”—“My boys” is the term that I like to use to refer to players that began their careers on one of my favorite teams. Players that I can never see myself rooting against no matter what other Jersey they Don…unless it’s a Phillies Jersey—traded away just as he becomes the player that us fans have been waiting 7 years for him to become. The other reason for my rage about the prospect of Reyes leaving, is much more objective.
I remember the Johan Santana trade very well. Even though Santana has been injured, that trade is the equivalent of the Casino heist in “Ocean’s Eleven.” The Twins were forced to trade Santana because they realized they would not be able to sign him in free agency and wanted to get something back. The only “quality” piece they got back was Carlos Gomez who is no longer a Twin. My biggest fear is that the Mets will panic just as the Twins did and trade Reyes to a team like the Giants for 3 mid-level (in other words prospects who will be no better than decent every day players at best) prospects because they fear that they cannot re-sign him. This would be an atrocious turn of events because Reyes is currently playing like the best Shortstop in baseball and would seriously be in the MVP debate if the Mets’ record was a little better. Yet if the Mets are intent on not re-signing Reyes, I can see them taking no other path than trading him. However should they get—as I expect they will—60 cents on the dollar for Reyes, they will be setting the Franchise back several more years. The only alternative to trading Reyes, is giving him the large contract he wants.
It seems as if the Wilpon’s finances have put the Mets in such a hole that they will be unable to give a big contract to anyone. This is a major problem, not just for the Mets and their fans, but for baseball in general. New York teams need to be able to pay their players and be competitive year in and year out. The market in New York is far too big for a MLB team to not be able to pay their own players. What is happening with the Mets and Reyes would never happen to the Yankees. Had it been the Yankees, Reyes would have been locked up long-term last offseason when there was the ability to get a discount on his contract (Reyes had a good year last year, but nothing like the year he is having now). Instead, the Mets decided to “See how he played this year” before making a determination. To me that’s the Wilpons saying “We hope he gets injured so we can justify not giving him a contract.” Or “We hope he has a decent year so the media can’t kill us for trading him at mid-season.” Unfortunately for the Wilpon’s Reyes has had a career year, a year that may command the oft mentioned “Carl Crawford contract.” Giving Reyes $100 million shouldn’t be a problem for any New York team, yet it is a huge problem for the Mets. If the Mets are forced to trade Reyes for 60 cents on the dollar or let him go in free agency, Bud Selig should take over the team. Friend or not, Fred Wilpon has been destroying baseball for Mets fans and Bud Selig needs to step in at some point. Should Reyes be traded or let go, the Wilpons will be alienating the entire fan base just like they did from 2002-2004. The difference between then and now, is that then they didn’t give up any star players, the team got old and the front office didn’t make changes where necessary. This team is relatively young and Reyes is in the prime of his career. Letting a bonafide star leave New York would be the equivalent of what would have happened had the Cleveland Cavaliers let Lebron go without making any attempt to re-sign him. The fallout will be devestating, and all Mets fans, myself included, will give up hope of seeing a good team in Queens again any time soon.
So do what you want Fred and Jeff Wilpon. But just know that the first step toward putting a perennial contender in Citi Field is re-signing your star shortstop. “Bleeding cash” is the terminology that Fred Wilpon used to describe the Mets finances in Sports Illustrated. Wilpon predicted that the Mets were on pace to lose upwards of $70 million this season. Well I have news for YOU Fred Wilpon, should you let Jose Reyes go and relegate the Mets to the bottom of the NL East again, $70 million is just the beginning as the Mets will bleed even more cash as they bleed the life and excitement out of their fan base.
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