With the recent news that Jose Reyes‘ $11 million option for 2011 has been picked up, many people are talking about Reyes and his future with the Mets.
I for one, believe that the Mets should try to lock up Jose Reyes and make him a Met lifer. He is a rare talent that Mets fans take for granted. Reyes is, without a doubt, one of the most exciting players to watch in all of sports.
He uses his speed to create a nightmare for the opposing team, especially the pitcher. Earlier this season, Reyes was playing some of the best baseball in his career. People say that Jose Reyes’ skills are diminishing, but I beg to differ.
When this guy is healthy, he is dynamic. Reyes is one of the key parts of the Mets’ core, second only to David Wright. Wright and Reyes are the faces of this franchise, and nobody can ever replace them.
The arguments against Jose Reyes is that he is too injury prone, lazy, doesn’t play up to his potential, and many more things concerning his mindset. All of these arguments against Reyes are totally inaccurate.
Despite Reyes’ first major league season, he has never had major injury problems until the past two seasons. I wouldn’t even consider last season as a injury riddled season for him. Reyes played in a total of 133 games this season.
If you ask me, Reyes wanted to be on the field every single day this season. He played every game that he possibly could.
After an ice cold start to his season, Reyes went on to finish the season with a .282 batting average. When he was at his healthiest point of the season he was on fire. He brought his average up from the low .200’s to .300 in a matter of weeks.
We were seeing Jose play some of the best baseball of his career. There is no denying that when Reyes is 100 percent healthy, he is absolutely great. He is 100 percent healthy a lot more than most Mets fans think.
From 2005 to 2008, Reyes respectively played in 161, 153, 160, and 159 games. That is an astounding amount of playing time. For the people who say that Reyes does not want to be on the playing field, just look at the numbers. The numbers don’t lie.
In 2009 Reyes only played in 36 games. This is like saying because an artist has one bad song, he is a bad artist. One injury riddled season doesn’t make a player prone to injury every season.
People question Reyes’ desire to be on the field. In an interview conducted before the 2010 season Reyes said that he likes the fans’ criticism when he’s doing bad, but he can’t stand when fans question his work ethic, and say he doesn’t want to be on the playing field.
He loves the game of baseball, and will play on the field whenever he can. In 2009 he even tried to play through the pain,unfortunately making his injury worse.
Reyes had the desire to play the game even though he was injured, which resulted in him getting seriously injured and sidelined for the rest of the season. Apparently that makes him lazy and not wanting to be on the playing field.
No one has a strong argument against Jose Reyes being a Met lifer. Other than being a superb ballplayer, he is also a fantastic clubhouse guy. Some might call him a cheerleader, but I call him a motivator.
He’s always smiling and encouraging his teammates. He also has a personalized handshake with each and every player. He uses those handshakes to congratulate when they do something great. This guy makes his teammates want to get down and dirty and win.
Simply put, he has an electric personality. You can’t put a price on Jose Reyes. He is a key part to this organization and new Mets general manager realizes that. Alderson made it clear that Jose is a great player and he is open to extending Reyes’ contract.
As for trading Reyes, Alderson said that that is very unlikely.
I’m glad that the new Mets general manager sees how lucky he is to work with a player of Reyes’ caliber. Better yet, Reyes wants to be in New York. He enjoys the energy of the fans and having the spotlight on him. He is the perfect fit for this team, and he should be with the New York Mets until he retires.
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