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The New York Mets and the Milwaukee Brewers had a deal in place to exchange infielder Wilmer Flores and pitcher Zack Wheeler for Carlos Gomez.
Gomez was told about the trade as he boarded the team plane. Martin Maldonado took a selfie with Gomez and some other teammates and tweeted it. Fans at Citi Field, where the Mets were playing the Padres, started chanting “Car-los Go-mez,” while Flores was tearing up at his shortstop position. Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
Then came this tweet at about 10:53pm:
Sandy Alderson insists “there is no trade. Unfortunately, social media got ahead of the facts.” Says Gomez deal “will not transpire.” #Mets
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) July 30, 2015
This sent the Twitterverse into some chaos. There were reports that there was never a deal in place, while others said that the Brewers nixed the deal due to a problem with Wheeler’s physical. Still others have pointed to a health issue, possibly Gomez’s hip, that caused the Mets to nix the deal.
It turns out that it was the Mets that backed out of the deal, and it was because of Gomez’s hip. This was a surprise to many because there were no reports about Gomez having a hip injury. His agent, Scott Boras, did not know anything about it.
Boras adds: “He has not seen a doctor for anything other than his hamstring issue. He is getting no treatment, has not asked for treatment.”
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 30, 2015
The Brewers should be happy about this. Gomez is an elite center fielder whereas Flores is not and Wheeler is coming off of Tommy John surgery and will not even be able to pitch until next June or July. The Brewers should be asking a much higher price for Gomez.
So, for now, Gomez is still a Brewer. We’ll see what happens in the next day or so.
Gomez is currently under contract though the 2016 season.
Statistics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and MLB.com