Former Miami Marlins shortstop Jose Reyes has come out to expose the truth behind his short stint with the organization, which signed him last off season for the sum of $106 million only to then deal him to the Blue Jays.
Reyes revealed to ESPN that he was purposely mislead by Marins owner Jeffrey Loria, who just days before trading Reyes was pushing him to buy a home in the area
“I was shocked, because Jeffrey Loria, he always told me he’s never going to trade me,”
“He always called my agent and said, ‘Tell Jose to get a good place here to live,’ and stuff like that.”
Reyes had signed the $106 milion 6 year deal in the winter of 2011, and never once thought he’d be headed to Toronto not even a year after inking the deal. Reyes continued with
“I mean, how can you want me to spend some money in Miami, when I have my house in New York, and you’re going to trade me in two days?”
“For a couple of days, a couple of weeks, you know, I still couldn’t believe what was going on,” he said. “But by now, I’m here in spring training, looking forward to getting on the field with my new team. It is what it is.”
“After the trade, everything’s done. So I don’t need to talk to them because they traded me. So why do I need to talk to them? If they trade me, that means they don’t want me there. So I don’t need to approach them and say, ‘Why’d you trade me?’ and stuff like that. Like I said, I was with [Loria] a couple days before the trade and he no say anything. So that caught everybody by surprise.”
One can certainly understand Reyes’ frustration, even with the full knowledge of baseball and all sports being a business first and foremost The greed of Loria and his possible deception of Miami fans to lure them in with prized free agents to get a stadium built, only to sell them all off after the first season is beyond tasteless.
Reyes also expressed his sympathies to the Marlins fanbase, and Marlins staple player Giancarlos Stanton who have seemingly overnight seen their briefly continuous team on paper go back to ‘prospects only’ status.