MLB Trade Rumors: Ranking All Potential Jose Reyes Suitors at the Deadline

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If you had to choose an inanimate object to describe the New York Mets' Jose Reyes, a scissor would provide the best detail.

The shortstop is as dynamic a player as there exists in the game of baseball; slicing and dicing his way through opponents as he racks up runs for his team.

No matter how you line up against him, Reyes cuts, and cuts and cuts away until your defense is nothing more than a bunch of tattered pieces. Scissors beats paper. 

In fact, baseball can often be boiled down to a game that mimics the childhood pastime of rock, paper, scissors. 

The first attribute, power, can take you a lot of places. Having lots of home run hitters on your roster usually leads to a high-scoring offense that can post crooked numbers with one swing of the bat.

Power pitchers are also a valuable asset. A strikeout assures that the ball doesn't enter play, making it impossible for the opponent to score runs.

But power hitting offenses are vulnerable to lulls, and are prone to being shutout in games if the long-ball never comes. In the same token, a power pitcher who can't locate or get his pitches by hitters is going to have a difficult time leaving the game unscathed.

The second attribute, intelligence, is as useful in baseball as it is anywhere else. The batter-pitcher matchup in is among the most unique happenings in sport. It is where the team sport of baseball becomes an individual quest for success.

Hitters and pitchers often find themselves in a convoluted matchup of game theory; each attempts to guess what the other will do next. 

But, as the old adage goes, baseball is a game of failure for hitters. The best among them will still fail on seven out of every ten trips to the plate. Since pitchers control the ball, trying to guess and outsmart the pitcher will only take you so far. 

Speed, the third and final attribute, is an entirely different animal. For some reason, the best kind of speed seems to always beat the best kind of power or intelligence. 

Speed is the single most important skill in sports because you can do so many things with it.

In baseball, hitters with elite speed can lay down drag bunts, beat out ground balls, advance on outs, steal bases and distract pitchers with the mere threat of a steal. 

Elite speed also directly correlates to above average defense. Research shows that faster players tend to have better range when playing the field. 

Because of the immense talent level, few professional athletes possess the fifth gear of speed that we would consider elite based on their immediate competition. 

Jose Reyes has this fifth gear, and, as a result, is one of baseball's most valuable commodities. 

What follows is a list of five teams, each of whom is more likely than the next to be Jose Reyes' owner by the end of the trading deadline. 

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