The Mets SHOULD NOT trade Jose Reyes

I was only 14-years-old when Jose Reyes made his major league debut. I feel old (I'm only 21), but what scares me more is that Jose Reyes was only 19. On June 10, 2003, the promising young shortstop made his major league debut at Texas just a day shy of his 20th birthday. The hype machine around this kid was startling, and just a few days later (on June 15, 2003), he had his first big major league moment, launching a grand slam into the left field stands at Anaheim for his first career home run.

We all knew the deal with Reyes: The kid had talent and speed but also came with the injury cloud hovering over him. Over his minor league career, he was hampered over and over with leg injuries that attacked his biggest strength. During spring training one year, the Mets even tried to change the way Jose ran.

But Jose Reyes persevered, and began making his mark on the Mets over the next seven years. Next to Pedro Feliciano, he is the longest tenured Met. He has provided many highlight reel moments in the field, with his bat, and on the base paths. He is one of the marquee stars that brings excitement to this team, and he has been paired with David Wright as the face of the Mets youthful core. Both Wright and Reyes came up through the Mets farm system and have been the face of the team in the past few years but also presumably in the foreseeable future.

This might soon change. Jose Reyes has one year left on his contract with the Mets, and trade talks have surrounded him in the early parts of this off-season. While the Mets acknowledge that they will need a deal that will basically knock them out, the talks over trading Reyes are all too real. The thought of breaking up the core has never appealed to me, because I have never seen a reason to trade a player who has never been responsible for the failures of this team. At this point, a better option at short stop is not available in the open market (since we can assume Derek Jeter is not leaving the Yankees) and the Mets can spend their money in much wiser ways than shopping Reyes.

Maybe I'm just being selfish, but when the Mets win, and I hope it is sometime in the somewhat-distant future (we'll say 10 years), I want Reyes and Wright to be a part of the team. They are the core and face of the team's successes and failures, but I don't find it fair to blame them when things go wrong because it is never all on them or even primarily on them.

Since his debut, Jose Reyes has been solid. You can argue that he has never lived up to the initial hype he came up with, but he is still young and has a lot of potential still ahead of him. It's scary to think we can give up on a kid who still has such a career ahead of him. With Wright and Reyes, the problem isn't with them but the team around them. I don't want either of them to lead this team on their own because that rarely ever leads to a successful team. We need a better supporting cast for them.

Another big issue is the injuries, but before 2009 Reyes had almost completely eradicated the injury problems. Between 2005 and 2008, Reyes played in at least 153 for 4 straight years, totaling 633 games over that span. I have to wonder what all the people who are saying he is always injured are thinking, because even though his injuries have resurfaced over the past couple of years, Reyes has proven that he can play on an almost daily basis (he played 161 games in 2005 and 160 in 2007) and has put up solid numbers over that span. I don't see the Mets replacing someone with much better than that.

Finally, you have to look at the numbers. From 2005-2008, he totaled at least 12 triples, topping out at 19 triples in 2006. Over those 4 years, he stole 78, 81, 78, and 82 bases, respectively. Even last year, he stole 63 bases in a year where he played 133 games. Jose Reyes is not a power hitter, nor is he or should be the main offensive star. What Jose Reyes offers is one of the best lead-off hitters in the league. He is the perfect table-setter: His speed is unquestionable, and a lead-off single can turn into a double after just 2 or 3 pitches. He gets in the pitcher's head with his speed, as he showed back in 2007 with Armando Benitez, and he has been known to draw balks. He is still the ideal hitter for Citi Field, as his ability fits into a stadium with huge gaps in left and right center that allow Reyes to take advantage of his speed.

Jose Reyes is an thrilling player. When healthy, he is the catalyst for the Mets offense and improves the RBI potential of David Wright, Carlos Beltran, and hopefully Jason Bay in 2011. There is no reason we should be looking to trade him because he can still be part of the youth movement, seeing as how he is only 26 himself. Maybe I've just grown so attached to Wright and Reyes as a fan, but I want these two to stay their entire career with the Mets, and I want to see them win here, not with another team. It will make the good and the bad all that much better. In the end though, are we looking to trade Reyes because we will improve the team, or are we doing it just to do something. If it's the latter, then the Mets may be making a grave mistake.