Jose Reyes is Gone, Long Live Jose Reyes

Ugh.

That was my first reaction to the news that the Marlins had drastically upped their offer to Reyes, and were likely to sign him last night. That kept being my reaction through the various developments about the details of the offer, to the time when it was officially announced that my favorite active baseball player in all the world is no longer a member of my favorite team. Ugh.

In fact, that kept being my reaction right until the time I went to bed last night. Ugh, I don't want to think about it, this sucks, etc. But I find that, somewhat to my surprise, on waking up today I have a less viscerally repulsed feeling about the whole thing. Instead my reaction has sorted itself into fairly specific judgments of the various parties involved in the whole affair:


The Wilpons, and other Mets owners: Okay, I'm back on the "I hate the Wilpons" bandwagon. The Madoff scandal broke in December of 2008, and since then approximately, oh wait, nothing has gone right for the Mets. That's exactly the point subsequent to which nothing's gone right for this team. I was never particularly fond of them, but in recent months I haven't really felt the anti-Wilpon vibe as emphatically as some people seem to. Now I do.

Sandy Alderson, and the Mets front-office regime: Condemned to the deepest circle of my Personal Opinion Hell, a.k.a. "strongly disapprove," for all eternity or until he gets Reyes back in the post-Marlins-World-Series firesale. This isn't just a matter of principle, the "I have to hate the GM who lets my favorite player walk in the prime of his career" principle, although that's at play too. The money Alderson was unwilling to spend was money six or seven years down the line, when it must be presumed that the Mets will not be acting like a small-market, low-money team anymore. This whole thing about just never giving anyone a long-term deal strikes me as a once-valid reaction against a certain wrongful tendency (giving out enormous long-term deals to everyone) that has now been taken too far.

Terry Collins: Neutral. He just wasn't actually a player in this game, so what's to hold against him?

The New York Mets: I'm still a Mets fan. I'm a Mets fan every little bit as much as I was two days ago, although I think I might not watch their games next year with quite the fervor I've done over the past several years. That might change if Jenrry Mejia gets himself into the major-league rotation, finally. But, look: I'll sometimes say things like, "well, I have nothing against the people of Iran, just the government that's oppressing them; in fact, Iran itself is deserving of sympathy for having such an awful regime controlling it." Same with the Mets: the fact that I strongly dislike the Mets higher-management team says nothing about what I think of the actual team. The team is not its owners, or its general-manager. In one sense the team is the current Major League roster plus coaching staff; in another sense it isn't even that. Either way, I'm still a fan.

Jose Reyes: ...is still my favorite active Major League baseball player. Can I blame him for wanting to go to the team that recognized how awesome he is, and was willing to reward him for it? Or for wanting to go to a team that is genuinely trying to win in the foreseeable future, instead of the one that's just saying "oh, we can't think about contending until next year" every single off-season? No, I can't. If he hadn't let the Mets try to match whatever his final offer from Miami was, then I might have a little something to hold against him. He did, they didn't. I'd still like to see Jose win some MVP awards, get near the top of the all-time steals leaderboard, hit a bunch of triples, get 3000 hits, win a World Series or two over the course of his career, and go into the Hall of Fame. At this point, the main thing I'd like is for him to do all of that stuff with several different teams, so that when he does go into the Hall, it'll be as a New York Met.

The Miami Marlins: Today is probably the day in recent years when I've hated the Marlins the least. This is the part of my reaction that I find odd. I've never really loved them (they seem kind of obnoxious when we play them), and obviously in the past few weeks I've been resentful of their odd activity in the market. But as I mentioned above, they're the team that noticed how awesome my favorite active player is. Do I hold this against them? I don't think so. Besides, a big part of what I've disliked about them (which is also a part of what I've sometimes minded about the Phillies) is that their team was predicated, to a certain degree, on the idea that their shortstop was better than Jose Reyes. They've abandoned that premise.

So today I find myself kind of hoping that they'll keep signing people. Maybe they'll land Mark Buehrle, or C.J. Wilson, or even Albert Pujols. Then they'll win the World Series next year, or the year after that, or something (though I'm rooting first and foremost for the Red Sox next year on account of Bobby Valentine, presuming the Mets genuinely fail to be competitive). And then they can have a firesale, and send Reyes back to the Mets. Hey, at that point it'd make sense for us: if Alderson doesn't like six-year contracts, this way he gets to in essence sign Reyes to a five- or four-year deal. Let Jose spend a couple of years elsewhere, where his Wins Above Replacement will do more good, and then when the Mets are ready to compete themselves, he can come back and lead us to a championship. Okay, Marlins? Okay, Sandy? That's the plan, right?