I'm Sorry, Did Someone Say Reyes Has Character Issues?

I just read an article (while procrastinating from editing my philosophy essay due in 158 minutes) arguing that Jose Reyes' character issues (which, of course, compare unfavorably to the God of Intangibles Derek Jeter) are a price worth paying for his on-field production. Never mind that that's absolutely right, Reyes' pure production on the baseball diamond would be worth just about any amount of unpleasant character. He was on pace for a 9-win season this year, prior to injury. But since when did Jose Reyes become someone with character issues?



Jose Reyes has one of the best characters of any baseball player I've ever seen. He's having fun, all the time. His energy and sheer enjoyment at playing baseball is infection, you can see it infecting his teammates if you watch any Mets game. He plays every day, and he plays hard every day. All the time. Thrice in a four-year span Reyes played at least as many games as Jeter ever has. He runs out every ground ball, because for him, unlike for many slow-footed sluggers, that really might produce quite a few infield hits or reached-on-errors over the course of the season. He steals forty bases in a year when he shuts the running game down in the second half of the year out of concern he'll injury his hamstrings. Which he does, because he doesn't want to hurt the team by injuring himself. For me, though, the inquiry ends at the beginning: he embodies what the Mets are all about. If you want a team that is all about winning, all the time, that thinks you should go hang your head in shame any time you don't win the World Series, that thinks that enjoying watching a baseball game your team happens to lose makes you a bad fan, go look in the Bronx. That's not the Mets. Baseball is a game, and it's a fun game. The Mets are a team build around fun, they have been as long as I remember, and Reyes is a perfect exemplar of that team culture.*

And we throw all of that out the window because he pulled himself out of the Mets' effort to win their 77th out of 162 games in order to secure a batting title? That his team had never once gotten before? A move that countless other players have pulled throughout baseball history? Jimmy Rollins compared Reyes' actions to Rollins' own, in allowing himself to stay in the Phillies' last game, adding three more outs to his 0-3 start and dropping himself below his season batting-average goal. Of .270. I'm sorry Rollins, but that's just not the same thing. The first batting title in team history is just a bigger deal than missing your arbitrary, mediocre personal goal. Oh, and Rollins, you think you might be trying to depress the market for Reyes in order to boost the market for a certain other leadoff-hitting, switch-hitting free agent shortstop? You know that analysis comes with no biases whatsoever, huh?

Whom did Reyes' maneuver hurt? The fans at the game? Well, the alternative was probably for him to sit out the entire game, since he was leading, had been skipping day games after night games, and has been (understandably) playing not to get hurt for most of the second half. He chose instead to give those fans one last vintage Reyes moment. Other than that, I can't see what harm he does to anyone. If he finishes his career on 2,999 hits (which I think would be extremely difficult to do) then maybe he'll regret that he didn't stay in that game and pick up one more. Ryan Braun can't complain; Reyes left the door open for him rather than slamming it shut, and Braun decided to back away from it by going 0-4 that evening. The Mets as a team can't complain: increasing the club's total historical batting championships from 0 to 1 is way more important than increasing the team's 2011 wins from 76 to 77. Reyes did no harm to anyone with that maneuver. The complaints against him are just moralizing for the sake of moralizing. It's people who want to disapprove of Reyes, for whatever reason, people who want to snidely remark that "he's no Jeter."

Yes, Jose Reyes is no Derek Jeter. He's much better, especially in terms of his character. Jeter's never won a batting title. He's scarcely ever led the league in anything, unlike Reyes, whose stats page is strewn with black ink. He's never really been a competent shortstop, or an appropriate leadoff hitter. He feuds with his teammates and forces vastly superior offensive and defensive players to change their positions to accommodate him. Reyes smiles occasionally. As in, on the occasion of his being on a baseball field. Or anywhere else, come to think of it. He doesn't make histrionic leaping throws to just-barely throw out the runner at first, he just gets to the ball and lasers it to first with his rocket of an arm. He also doesn't put on exaggerated fake displays of pain to convince an umpire, wrongly, that he was hit by a pitch. But he will go berserk if he hits a triple and gets called out, wrongly, by the third-base umpire. And every report I've ever heard says he's a wonderful clubhouse presence, a mentor to younger players and someone who keeps the whole team relaxed.

Now, for some people the Jeter, business-like, buzz-cut, somber expression kind of character might be what they like. But I'm a Mets fan, and I like my players to look like they're passionate and having fun. Reyes has both fun and passion, all the time, to extreme degrees. That doesn't change because he made a strategic gambit that involved sitting on a lead; people do that all the time. Reyes' character isn't a drawback that his impressive statistical production means we have to tolerate. It's one of the main assets he brings to the team. It's why Mets fans are so desperate for him not to leave, because it's just more fun watching a Mets game with Jose Reyes in it than watching one without him. I enjoy watching the Mets lose a game with Reyes at the top of the lineup more than I enjoy watching them win one without him on the field, on average. And that's because of his wonderful, infectiously smiling personality.