At around 9:00 p.m., the Mets reportedly agreed to a deal with the Brewers to trade Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores for Carlos Gomez:
Wilmer Flores—who has been with the Mets organization since he signed as a 16-year-old in 2007—started tonight’s game against the Padres, and apparently word filtered down to him that he was traded, because he began crying while on the field:
Usually players are immediately pulled from the game when they are traded—Troy Tulowitzki was yanked out of the game in the ninth inning a couple of nights ago when he was traded—but Flores wasn’t. What gives?
Like Ken Rosenthal, I don’t really know how to interpret all of this. If the deal was close enough to completion to leak it to the media, you’d think Flores would have been pulled from the game. But seemingly that isn’t the case, so did Joel Sherman and other reports get antsy and report something as final that wasn’t anywhere close?
Update (10:57 p.m.): Uhh, maybe Flores isn’t being traded?
Sandy Alderson blamed “social media” for the confusion:
Update (11:04 p.m.): Joel Sherman explains his erroneous report (which, to be fair, numerous other reporters confirmed), giving us a good look at how the the reporting sausage is made:
Update (12:22 a.m.): It was widely assumed that the Brewers nixed the deal after seeing the medicals for Zack Wheeler—who underwent Tommy John surgery before the season—but it seems it was actually the Mets that killed the deal over concerns about Carlos Gomez’s hip:
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