Yankees, Rockies Discussed Jose Reyes Trade at Deadline

According to esteemed MLB insider Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, the New York Yankees and Colorado Rockies were engaged in preliminary trade discussions involving shortstop Jose Reyes this summer. The plan was to keep Didi Gregorius at short and plug Jose Reyes in at second base to replace former veteran Stephen Drew.

At the time, Jose Reyes had just been dealt from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Colorado Rockies in exchange for Troy Tulowitzki, and Brian Cashman was quickly trying to bring Reyes back to the American League East.

Per Rosenthal:

"“The teams talked about different ways to make a Reyes trade work, according to major-league sources. The Yankees, who wanted Reyes to play second base, would have required the Rockies to pay a significant portion of his remaining salary. But the two sides never got close to a deal, sources said.”"

Obviously Reyes would have fit right into the media circus they call New York, as he broke into the major leagues and quickly became an All-Star with the New York Mets, whom he played with from 2003-2011. Reyes is still the all-time Mets leaders in stolen bases with 370, but those days are long behind him.

Health has become a serious issue for Reyes, as chronic hamstring issues have kept him in and out of the lineup for the latter portion of  his career. These hamstring issues have not only taken a toll on his base running, but also have restricted his range at shortstop, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s shifted to second base at some point for Colorado in 2016 anyway.

Trading for Reyes and starting him at second would have given the Yankees a clear-cut upgrade over Stephen Drew at the time, but the Yankees are probably better off that no deal was reached.

For starters, even though the 32-year old Reyes is in the decline of his career, he’s still under contract through 2017 with a team option in 2018 thanks to the brilliant ownership group of the Miami Marlins – so the Yankees would have been stuck with him until his age 34 season regardless.

More importantly, if the Yankees traded for Jose Reyes they almost certainly wouldn’t have traded for Starlin Castro or Aroldis Chapman.

From a personnel standpoint, having Reyes locked-in at second base for the foreseeable future would have blocked any thought of Brian Cashman and Theo Epstein swapping Adam Warren and Starlin Castro, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Castro is younger and more versatile than the injury plagued Reyes anyway.

Now in terms of Chapman, keep in mind that in similar fashion, Jose Reyes was arrested this off-season for a domestic violence dispute between him and his wife in Hawaii. Like Aroldis Chapman, Reyes is also awaiting sanctioning from Commissioner Rob Manfred under the MLB’s new domestic violence policy.

Now I know the Yankees like to make headlines, and because of their brand they can take heat when it comes to PR hits, but adding two ball players facing domestic violence charges would have been ludicrous. Had they added Reyes and his domestic violence allegations popped up, I’m also positive the Yankees would have never contemplated adding Chapman – even at the low trade cost they got him for.

So in the end, it was either Jose Reyes, or the duo of Starlin Castro and Aroldis Chapman.

Who would you rather have?