Consider, too, that the incumbent third baseman at the major league level had six hits (including two home runs) on Sunday, then followed it up on Monday with another hit and the game-tying RBI. It seems to show that the more he plays, the more he delivers.
So what would be the natural thing to do? Why, bench the guy who’s hitting, bypass the .278 hitting outfielder – Michael Conforto – and promote Jose Reyes to play 3B where he’s only played about 10 games in his entire professional career.
What makes the decision to promote Jose Reyes in the midst of a five-game winning streak when everything is going right at the major league level and everything has gone wrong for him at the minor league level even more ponderous is the announcement by the manager that Reyes was not coming to town for awhile yet. Then the club announces after the game that Reyes is indeed on his way to New York in time for Tuesday’s game against the Marlins. Once again the front office and the field manager are not talking to one another and making the club look ridiculous for its perpetual mismanagement.
Of course, since Terry Collins apparently is not the one pulling the strings, that means Reyes will be starting and leading off. To put Reyes on the field means that the Mets need to create a 40-man roster vacancy (60-day DL for David Wright, perhaps?) and a 25-man roster space. Someone will be shown the door with the likely candidates being Matt Reynolds, Alejandro De Aza, Wilmer Flores and Brandon Nimmo. Since Reyes is an infielder my money is on Reynolds, though on a performance basis De Aza is the major’s worst hitter right now. Still, he earns $6 million and cutting him loose would mean Sandy Alderson admitting he made an expensive mistake. Then again both Flores and Nimmo have options available and kicking one of them to the curb makes no sense whatsoever…but then neither does promoting the .200 hitting Jose Reyes before he’s ready and while the team is doing just fine for the past five games without him.
We’ll know soon enough.
11 comments:
de Aza must de Part.
Forget the sunk de Aza $. Reynolds can play OF in a pinch. So ought to Jose be able to - after all, Miguel Montero pitched. But the top 4 OFs are doing well, so the need for a 5th OF this week s/b slim. Their plan s/b to recall Conforto within 2 weeks. He was 4 for 9 with a walk and 5 RBIs the past two games, so maybe the Vegasillin antibiotic is kicking in. So de Aza is expendable.
In viewing the crowded OF picture, I feel bad for Travis Taijeron, who is up to .315 and had his 34th double and 13th homer over the past two games - 50 total XBH - crazy power #s for only 80 games. .350/.424/.641 against righties is pretty astonishing.
As much as I wanted Reyes back with the Mets I do agree that he is NOT yet ready to assume 3B for the Mets. Neither is sitting Flores when he is hot.
But that is what the Mets do.
I disagree with a lot of this FO's moves (and I disagree more often than not with TC's moves, but that is a separate conversation) but I have a feeling that we'll see De Aza DFA'd today. The Reyes comeback will dominate the news cycle (something this team pays attention to, even as they bungle their PR time after time) and so will take attention away from admitting a $6mm mistake. Reynolds' ability to fill in as an emergency OF, Nimmo's emergence, as well as Conforto's, and yes, Taijeron's presence in Vegas gives them the insurance they need to do the deed. We shall see.
Correction -- I gave Jose Reyes too much credit. He was hitting a paltry .177 in the minors at the time of his promotion today.
oddly, Jose hit well briefly in Rockies' AAA before his release.
Adam, yes, Reyes would be a good shield for the bad decision on de Aza turning into a DFA.
Who would have hit better for the Mets this year - Taijeron or de Aza?
Tyrone Power would have hit better than De Aza and he's been dead for 58 years.
Leave Wilmer in one position and let him play everyday - he will hit.
Until the last couple of games we havent seen much from Flores. Sure the timing is unfortunate for Flores, but I expect Reyes sees a little time at SS, 2B too. De Aza has had a half season to prove his worthiness. Continuing to shuttle him out there is more embarrassing at this point than eating 3 million I would think.
Ummm...Flores has been hitting .315 since being inserted into the lineup on a more-or-less regular basis since June 3rd. That's more than a month of proof. Go with the hot hand.
Hmm, .289 in June with a .775 OPS, ok you are right, better than I thought. Hasnt felt that way however. Maybe because no one was hitting a lick with men on in June.
Well, apparently, even the glare of Jose Jose Jose's return was not enough of a distraction to move the FO to quietly admit its mistake with De Aza and move on. Matt Reynolds, who has done little wrong since he got here, is getting sent down instead. Granted, these two alternative moves are not symmetrical, since the Mets don't lose the player by sending Reynolds down, while they do if they DFA De Aza.
I'm curious to see what Flores (who is in the lineup tonight, though it's against a lefty, so hard to draw any conclusions) will have to do to maintain regular AB's as anything more than the short side of a platoon. I hope that Terry gives everyone ample rest, and that Flores is in the lineup as a semi-regular at least. He finally seems to be getting his groove, and I still have high hopes for him as a hitter.
I am excited to see Reyes back in a Mets uni, however, and I'm hoping that we might catch lightning in a bottle with the return of the prodigal son. His speed (such as it still is) and his energy seem like they should be valuable additions to this squad. If he hits.
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