Sandy Alderson was pigeonholed early in his administration as a risk-averse executive who would strongly reject the idea of a mega-contract for any player, but specifically an injury-prone one such as Jose Reyes, who did not have the Mets’ general manager’s favorite asset: elite on-base percentage.
Alderson warned not to stereotype him, and that decisions would be based on information absorbed during the season.
We should have listened….
Translation: Alderson has learned to admire what Reyes does to such a degree that neither a minor hamstring injury nor the lack of elite on-base skills is dimming his ardor to keep the shortstop.
Oh what a story! Heartless, robotic, spreadsheet-crunching GM comes to town hellbent on trading a team’s lovable homegrown star shortstop, only to be won over by all the player’s intangibles in an effervescent, MVP-caliber first half. It reads like the treatment for Moneyball 2: Revenge of the Guys Without Manboobs.
Unless… unless… What if Sandy Alderson knew from the beginning of his tenure with the Mets that there is more than one tool with which to assess a baseball player? And what if talk of the Mets’ inevitable fire sale was overblown from the beginning?
Crazy. What kind of story is that?
Tedquarters 