More David and Jose thoughts...

A few more nuggets about Jose Reyes and David Wright. Joel Sherman of the New York Post wrote yesterday that the Mets unlikely to get a lot back for veteran stars. Additionally, Jeff Bradley of The Newark Star-Ledger wrote that Sandy Alderson is familiar with the Jose Reyes situation:

"The date was June 21, 1989, and Alderson, then the 41-year-old GM of the Oakland A’s, fleeced the Yankees for Rickey Henderson, sending pitchers Greg Cadaret and Eric Plunk, and outfielder Luis Polonia east for the greatest leadoff hitter in major-league history. Four months later, the Henderson-led A’s were World Series champions.

At the time of that deal, Alderson believed Henderson — in his walk year — was most likely going to be a short-term rental for the A’s. But taking Henderson was a risk he took on behalf of Oakland that translated into that team’s one and only World Series title during an era the A’s appeared ready to dominate."

I remember the Henderson trade, remember the buzz created by Caderet, Plunk, and Polonia. The buzz was especially loudest about Polonia growing up blocks away from Yankee Stadium and that the Yankees got back the fireballer Plunk, who they sent to Oakland when they traded to get Rickey Henderson a few years earlier. The only other buzz thereafter was when Luis Polonia was arrested after an incident involving a 15-year old girl in a Milwaukee hotel room.

[On a side note, any Met fan over the Reyes era can tell you that Jose's mindset as a leadoff hitter or focus as a basestealer didn't really solidfy until the Mets hired Rickey Henderson as a baserunning coach. I don't think it's a coincidence that is when Reyes' game really picked up.]

Which is why Ken Rosenthal's column at FoxSports.com today is so appealing. I mentioned in my blog post yesterday that replacing Reyes would be much more difficult than replacing Wright and I even made some comparison to Nomar Garciaparra. However, Rosenthal makes some great points that I hadn't considered that replacing Wright isn't so simple either:

"Let’s see if I can build a market for this ne’er-do-well third baseman, whose OPS-plus from 2008 to ’10 — as pointed out by Andy McCullough of the Newark Star-Ledger — was comparable to Mark Teixeira’s from ’06 to ’08 at a similar age.

Wright would fit for both Los Angeles teams, both Chicago teams, the Rockies, Orioles, Twins, Tigers and Mariners. He could replace Scott Rolen in Cincinnati, Chipper Jones in Atlanta and Aramis Ramirez with the Cubs.

That enough?

No, the Mets probably wouldn’t trade Wright to the Braves or Phillies. But I’d bet that the Phillies’ uber-aggressive GM, Ruben Amaro Jr., would move heaven, earth and a killer prospect package to get Wright’s right-handed bat at Citizens Bank Park.

I’ll say it again: The entire discussion is ridiculous. If so many teams could use Wright, then maybe, just maybe, the Mets could use him, too."