JAWS and the 2024 Corridor of Fame Poll: José Reyes

The next article is a part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing take a look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 Corridor of Fame poll. For an in depth introduction to this yr’s poll, and different candidates within the sequence, use the software above; an introduction to JAWS might be discovered right here. For a tentative schedule, see right here. All WAR figures confer with the Baseball-Reference model until in any other case indicated.

Content material warning: This piece incorporates particulars about alleged home violence. The content material could also be tough to learn and emotionally upsetting.

Throughout the Mets’ run of relevance within the mid-2000s, José Reyes appeared like a celebrity within the making. Via 2008, his age-25 season, the electrifying and charismatic shortstop had already led the Nationwide League in triples and steals thrice apiece whereas gathering at the very least 190 hits for 4 straight seasons. Earlier than that run, nevertheless, he had additionally demonstrated a propensity for leg accidents that value him important time. These accidents finally soured the more and more cost-conscious Mets possession on him regardless of his All-Star stage play, and to be truthful, Reyes was by no means actually the identical after departing New York by way of free company following the 2011 season. By the point he returned 5 years later, he was not solely a significantly diminished participant however one thing of a pariah, having been suspended for violating the league’s new home violence coverage after which launched by the Rockies.

José Bernabe Reyes was born on June 11, 1983 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, the older of two youngsters of José Manuel Reyes, a plumber, and his spouse Rosa. He grew up in Palmar Arriba, a village 120 miles north of Santo Domingo, and started enjoying baseball at age 10, on a dust area utilizing a milk carton for a glove till his father might afford a used one. Reyes took to the sport shortly sufficient that he joined his father — who at that time was constructing bogs for a manufacturing facility — on the corporate softball crew whereas nonetheless a pre-teen.

“I introduced him to play sooner or later for the manufacturing facility crew, and a pal noticed him in motion and stated to me, ‘If you wish to get one thing out of this child, then get him out of the countryside,’” Jose Manuel advised the New York Publish in 2011. After some preliminary worry of leaving residence, the youthful Reyes joined a youth crew within the Felix de Leon League in Santiago, 20 minutes away. Ultimately that put him on the radar of main league groups. Two months after the 16-year-old, 130-pound Reyes had begun switch-hitting, he was invited to a tryout camp. 4 groups handed. “He was nothing particular throughout the board, they thought: a below-average hitter and fielder with below-average pace and a below-average arm,” wrote ESPN Journal’s Lindsay Berra in 2006. “However [Mets scout Eddy] Toledo was taken in by the grin. ‘There was one thing particular in his face and eyes. He was so thrilling to me.’”

In a position to respect the teenager’s vitality, focus, and uncooked athleticism, Mets assistant basic supervisor Omar Minaya green-lit the signing. Reyes acquired a bonus of $13,000 (or was it $15,000, or $22,000?). Reyes gave half the cash to his mother and father and uncle, who constructed a bodega in entrance of their residence the place they bought plantains, corn, and candy potatoes grown on farmland the shortstop additionally bought for them.

Whereas most Dominican gamers start their skilled careers with a season within the Dominican Summer time League or the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League, Reyes began his profession with the Kingsport (Tennessee) Mets of the Appalachian League in 2000; he was only a week previous his seventeenth birthday on Opening Day. He hit .250/.359/.318 and stole 10 bases in 49 video games, after which Baseball America referred to as him “the consensus greatest defensive infielder within the league… [with] excellent arms, vary and footwork at shortstop, in addition to a powerful arm.”

After Reyes hit .307/.337/.472 with 5 homers, 15 triples, and 30 steals at A-level Capital Metropolis as an 18-year-old, he rocketed to no. 18 on BA’s Prime 100, then to no. 3 after hitting .288/.343/.444 with eight homers, 19 triples, and 58 steals in stops at Excessive-A St. Lucie and Double-A Binghamton in 2002. BA hailed him as having “the very best set of pure instruments amongst minor league infielders” however cautioned about his strike zone judgment.

Reyes started the 2003 season at Triple-A Norfolk, hitting a modest .269/.333/.356 whereas swiping 26 baggage in 42 video games earlier than lacking a month with a proper hamstring pressure. As soon as he rehabbed, the Mets promoted him to debut towards the Rangers on June 10, 2003, the day earlier than his twentieth birthday. He went 2-for-4 with a single off John Thomson and a double off Aaron Fultz. On June 15, he hit his first homer, a grand slam off the Angels’ Jarrod Washburn, and three days later hit a bases-loaded triple off the Marlins’ Kevin Olsen. Although he didn’t increase his on-base proportion above .300 for good till August 5, he reached .307/.334/.434 (102 OPS+) with 5 homers and 13 steals earlier than struggling a Grade 2 sprain of his left ankle whereas attempting to keep away from a double play on August 31, ending his season. All advised, he collected 2.3 WAR in simply 69 video games, a powerful starting.

Sadly, his follow-up season was an injury-plagued mess. Reyes once more strained his proper hamstring in mid-March, didn’t debut till June 19, and performed simply 44 video games earlier than being sidelined by a stress response in his left fibula, which value him one other six weeks. He completed with a dismal .255/.271/.373 (66 OPS+) line and 0.5 WAR in 53 video games. Most alarmingly, his stroll charge plummeted from 4.5% to 2.2% though he swung at simply 20.6% of pitches exterior the zone; he took numerous referred to as strikes and struggled within the zone.

Reyes’ 2005 season was a blended bag. On the one hand, he was wholesome sufficient to play 161 video games and lead the NL in plate appearances, at-bats, triples (17) and steals (60) — the final two of which exemplified what a dynamic participant he could possibly be — but he hit simply .273/.300/.386 (81 OPS+), was six runs under common defensively, and completed with 1.6 WAR. Nonetheless, with David Wright delivering a wonderful first season, Minaya succeeding Jim Duquette as GM and including free brokers Carlos Beltrán and Pedro Martinez, and Willie Randolph taking on from Artwork Howe as supervisor, the crew improved from 71 wins to 83.

After some spring tutelage from Rickey Henderson, the 23-year-old Reyes broke out in 2006, enhancing his pitch choice, doubling his stroll charge from 3.7% to 7.5%, and hitting the ball on the bottom extra typically to higher make the most of his pace. Once more he led the NL in triples (17) and steals (64), this time whereas batting .300/.354/.487 (115 OPS+) with 19 homers, which together with improved protection pushed him to five.9 WAR. He made his first All-Star crew, and in August signed a four-year, $23.25 million extension masking his 2007-10 seasons.

With Minaya buying and selling for Carlos Delgado and signing free agent Billy Wagner, almost all the pieces clicked for the Mets in 2006. They received 97 video games and the NL East, then swept the Dodgers within the Division Collection, earlier than falling simply brief in a decent seven-game NLCS towards the Cardinals. Reyes hit simply .250/.298/.386 in 47 PA throughout that run, however did have a pair of three-hit video games within the NLCS, one in a Sport 2 loss (together with a leadoff double that sparked a three-run rally within the first and an RBI single within the second, each off Chris Carpenter) and the opposite in a Sport 6 win (together with a leadoff homer off Carpenter and a single, steal, and a run scored towards Braden Looper within the seventh). He went 0-for-5 in Sport 7, alas.

Reyes’ 2007 and ’08 weren’t fairly as much as his ’06 stage, however he did complete 9.9 WAR and 319 video games throughout the 2 seasons, hitting .280/.354/.421 (102 OPS+) with 12 homers and 78 steals within the former yr, throughout which he was elected to start out the All-Star Sport, and .297/.358/.475 (119 OPS+) with 16 homers and league leads in hits (204) and triples (19) within the latter. As famous a number of different occasions elsewhere inside this sequence, the Mets cratered down the stretch within the closing weeks of each seasons and misplaced out on playoff spots on the ultimate day. Reyes was among the many culprits in each collapses, hitting .187/.282/.320 throughout their 5-12 plummet in September 2007, and .200/.256/.300 as they went 3-6 to shut ’08.

Whereas Baseball Prospectus 2009 anointed him “The Most Thrilling Participant in Baseball,” Reyes was restricted to simply 36 video games that season. He injured his proper leg in San Francisco on Could 13, made only one pinch-hitting look over the following 5 video games, and underwent an MRI by Dodgers crew doctor Dr. Neal ElAttrache when the crew reached Los Angeles. ElAttrache recognized Reyes with {a partially} torn accent hamstring tendon, and each he and the Mets agreed that Reyes might proceed enjoying. The Mets publicly maintained that Reyes was day-to-day with tendinitis in his calf, not a hamstring harm, however he performed simply two extra video games earlier than hurting himself whereas operating. Not till early June did the Mets reveal he had torn a hamstring tendon, and in late September he tore the hamstring itself whereas testing the leg. Mets chief working officer Jeff Wilpon — the man with this monitor document — publicly claimed that ElAttrache misdiagnosed the harm, making a rift between the 2 groups.

The shortstop’s hamstring held collectively in 2010, however thyroid and indirect issues restricted him to 133 video games. Reyes by no means truly went on what was then the disabled record for the latter, merely missed weeks right here and there in true Wilpon-era vogue. He made the NL All-Star crew however hit for only a 103 OPS+ with 11 homers, 30 steals, and a pair of.3 WAR. The Mets picked up his $11 million choice for 2011 nonetheless, however by this time they have been feeling the pinch of the Wilpon household’s involvement in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. With Reyes’ free company looming, proprietor Fred Wilpon dug himself a gap in a Could 30 New Yorker profile by Jeffrey Toobin:

“He’s a racehorse,” Wilpon stated. When Reyes began with the Mets, in 2003, simply earlier than his twentieth birthday, he was pegged as a future star. Accidents have restricted him to a extra pedestrian profession, although he’s off to begin this season. “He thinks he’s going to get Carl Crawford cash,” Wilpon stated, referring to the Crimson Sox’ signing of the previous Tampa Bay participant to a seven-year, $142-million contract. “He’s had all the pieces flawed with him,” Wilpon stated of Reyes. “He received’t get it.”

Wilpon wasn’t flawed, however he was decidedly undiplomatic and unimaginative in failing to understand Reyes’ premium worth as a marquee attraction at a key defensive place within the league’s largest market. The quote landed throughout an distinctive season through which the shortstop set across-the-board profession highs with a .337/.384/.493 (144 OPS+) line whereas main the league in batting common and triples (16), stealing 39 bases, and tallying 4.6 WAR (however an unpleasant -14 DRS). He did all that in simply 126 video games, nevertheless, touchdown on the DL twice because of a recurrent left hamstring pressure.

Regardless of Wilpon’s obvious greasing of the skids, GM Sandy Alderson resisted buying and selling Reyes earlier than the deadline as a result of he hoped to re-sign him. The Mets reportedly provided Reyes a five-year deal within the $75 million –$85 million vary with a sixth-year choice to push it over $100 million, although Reyes maintained that no supply was ever made. Both manner, the Marlins signed Reyes to a closely backloaded six-year, $106 million deal, a part of a free agent binge through which additionally they landed Heath Bell and Mark Buehrle, and traded for Carlos Zambrano and supervisor Ozzie Guillen as they ready to maneuver into their new stadium. Reyes’ addition was made potential by Hanley Ramirez agreeing to maneuver from shortstop to 3rd base.

Reyes stayed wholesome and hit fairly nicely (.287/.347/.433, 109 OPS+) whereas stealing 40 bases for the Marlins, however his -16 DRS (accompanying Ramirez’s -10 at third base) restricted him to three.0 WAR. The Marlins’ experiment crashed and burned; the crew went 69-93, and was dismantled about as shortly as their 1997 championship squad was. On November 19, Reyes, Buehrle, Emilio Bonifácio, John Buck, Josh Johnson and $4 million have been traded to the Blue Jays for a seven-player bundle (Henderson Alvarez III, Anthony DeSclafani, Yunel Escobar, Adeiny Hechavarría, Jake Marisnick, Jeff Mathis, and Justin Nicolino).

With Reyes lacking two months because of a left ankle sprain and however nonetheless placing up a 113 OPS+ and a pair of.6 WAR, the blockbuster did little to vary the speedy fortunes of the Blue Jays, who improved from 73 wins… to 74. Although Reyes landed on the DL because of one other left hamstring pressure in 2014, he did play 143 video games, hit .287/.328/.398 (105 OPS+) whereas going 30-for-32 in steals, and produce 3.4 WAR. The Blue Jays improved to 83 wins, however any hope that the crew’s nine-game enchancment represented a nook turned was undone by a 50-50 begin in 2015. Reyes struggled each earlier than and after lacking almost 4 weeks because of a small crack in his rib in addition to a muscle pressure, suffered on a checked swing. He was hitting simply .285/.322/.385 (92 OPS+) on July 28 when the Blue Jays swung a six-player take care of the Rockies: Reyes, Miguel Castro, Jeff Hoffman, and Jesus Tinoco in alternate for Troy Tulowitzki and LaTroy Hawkins. The commerce, motivated by the Rockies desirous to get out from beneath the $107.5 million remaining on Tulowitzki’s 10-year deal, helped the Blue Jays make the playoffs for the primary time since 1992. In the meantime Reyes — who himself nonetheless had $56.3 million to go on his contract — hit simply .259/.291/.368 (67 OPS+) for a 94-loss crew.

He by no means performed for the Rockies once more. On October 31, 2015, Reyes was arrested in Maui and charged with abuse of a member of the family. The Maui County Police division stated Reyes and his spouse Katherine Ramirez have been concerned “in an argument that turned bodily and resulted in accidents.” Ramirez advised police that her husband had grabbed her throat and pushed her right into a glass door, and that she had suffered thigh, neck and wrist accidents.

Reyes pled not responsible to the cost, and when Ramirez declined to cooperate with prosecutors, it was dismissed in April 2016. Even so, Reyes’ case grew to become the primary taken up by Main League Baseball following the introduction of the Joint Home Violence, Sexual Assault and Baby Abuse Coverage in August 2015, which gave commissioner Rob Manfred broad powers to self-discipline gamers even when they weren’t arrested or convicted. Reyes was positioned on administrative depart on February 23, and on Could 14, Manfred introduced that his suspension would run by way of Could 31, a complete of 51 video games (he was not the primary participant disciplined beneath the brand new coverage, as Aroldis Chapman’s 30-game suspension was handed down in March). Reyes, who cooperated with the investigation and its therapy provisions, issued a boilerplate assertion of apology as soon as the suspension was introduced.

The coverage allowed Reyes to go on a rehab task previous to his reinstatement. He performed 9 video games for the Rockies’ Triple-A Albuquerque affiliate, however the crew most well-liked to show to prime prospect Trevor Story. Reyes was designated for task on June 15 and launched eight days later, nonetheless owed $39.1 million on his contract. Two days later, the Mets — who had simply misplaced Wright to season-ending surgical procedure to restore a herniated disc — signed Reyes to a minimum-salary deal. He joined their A-level Brooklyn Cyclones affiliate for a tune-up, and acquired a blended reception at MCU Park, cheers blended with boos. Afterwards he expressed his regret for the scenario he had put himself and his household in:

“I have to be a greater man. Be a greater husband. Be a greater dad for my ladies. I obtained three ladies, I have to be an instance for them. I’m a human being. I made a horrible mistake. I say so sorry to everyone. I ask for forgiveness to my spouse, my dad, my mother, to everyone. They know I’m a greater particular person than that.

“I paid my suspension to MLB. I went to counseling. I’m going to proceed to be going once more to counseling, no matter it takes. They are going to see a person who stands up for his mistake.”

All of it sounded good, however within the wake of what had occurred, it was nonetheless jarring to listen to Reyes obtain a hero’s welcome from the Citi Discipline crowd when he returned to the majors on July 5 following two video games with Brooklyn and 9 with Double-A Binghamton.

Reyes went 0-for-4 that night time towards the Marlins, however collected two doubles the following day, and homered towards the Nationals the day after that. He hit .267/.326/.443 (107 OPS+) with eight homers in 279 PA. Even with subpar protection at third, he was sufficient of a stopgap to assist the reigning NL champions declare a Wild Card berth. Reyes went 0-for-4 within the Wild Card Sport because the Mets have been shut out by the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner.

After the season, the Mets picked up Reyes’ minimal wage choice, however the returns diminished at the same time as he collected his 2,000th hit on Could 20 towards the Angels’ Alex Meyer, and stole his five hundredth base towards the Padres on July 24. He hit for a 94 OPS+ however was 21 runs under common whereas splitting his time between shortstop, third base, and second base. He completed with simply 0.1 WAR in 145 video games, his continued presence prompting all types of questions on a 92-loss crew, the principle one being: Why is he taking a roster spot from a participant who might assist extra? Likewise in 2018, after his authentic contract expired and the Mets re-signed him as a free agent after they might have despatched him on his manner. Then once more, would Reyes enjoying higher and being much more celebrated have been simpler to take beneath the circumstances? His decline as a participant at the very least provided that reduction.

Because it was, in 2018 Reyes performed in 110 video games however made solely 251 PA, sinking to a 62 OPS+ with -0.3 WAR for a 77-85 squad. On the ultimate day of the season, he acquired a sendoff, making one plate look towards the Marlins earlier than being changed by Amed Rosario, then taking a curtain name for the Citi Discipline followers.

Reyes hoped to play in 2019, however couldn’t land a significant league deal. On July 29, 2020, he introduced his retirement.

…

Whereas Reyes’ early years have been uneven sufficient that he was by no means clearly on a Corridor of Fame monitor, a visit to Cooperstown was hardly out of the query. His 20.2 WAR by way of his age-25 season (2008) was increased than that of 13 out of the 23 enshrined shortstops, whereas his 27.9 WAR by way of age-28 (2011) was nonetheless increased than eight of them, together with 4 (Pee Wee Reese, Luis Aparicio, Ozzie Smith, and Luke Appling) elected by the BBWAA. His 36.9 WAR although age 31 (2014) was forward of seven of them, together with all however Reese from that BBWAA-elected group. These gamers had endurance at shortstop, one thing Reyes couldn’t actually do given his defensive decline. By way of DRS, he was 55 runs under common from 2011–15, earlier than his fall from grace, costing his crew greater than a win per yr, and 29 under common as a utilityman in his last three seasons whereas his offense crumbled.

Moreso than Chapman, who was by no means beloved by a fan base and was defiant if not unrepentant upon coming back from his suspension, Reyes compelled the general public to confront its personal expectations as to how a participant suspended beneath the brand new home violence coverage was imagined to proceed along with his profession, notably given specialists cautioning towards a zero-tolerance method as a result of it additional endangers victims. That’s a sophisticated legacy for a participant to go away, nevertheless it’s what Reyes has.