The Great Guillorme

Luis Guillorme isn't a tragic literary figure — but he's close.

In books, usually if something happens, it happens for a reason. Look at “The Great Gatsby.” A guy stares across the water at a green light, and it’s actually a metaphor for hope and dreams. A man looks at a bookshelf, and he’s actually observing the power that books have to describe their readers. The titular character sees a rose on the ground, and he’s actually looking at the entire history of literary evolution. Kids, study English.

In “The Great Gatsby,” and in literature in general, things usually mean something — which is why it’s so strange, and paradoxically meaningful, when they mean nothing at all. When plot elements aren’t there for deeply symbolic reasons, but rather, are there because they just happened that way, it’s hugely disruptive to the whole theory of literature and storytelling. It would be like if at the end of “The Great Gatsby,” Nick moved to Cincinnati to sell tires, and Gatsby tripped and fell and bruised his shin, and Tom and Daisy went to counseling but were fine in the end. It might not mean anything — it just sort of happened. 

Bear in mind that “The Great Gatsby” doesn’t end like that. It ends, basically, with the dead Gatsby. So in a way, it’s good that things didn’t actually happen that way, and that it was all just there for symbolism. Fortunately, the Mets infield situation right now doesn’t remind me at all of “The Great Gatsby.” Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure it reminds me of “In Cold Blood.”

“In Cold Blood,” Truman Capote’s 1966 half-true story of murder in Kansas, is a classic of the “it just sort of happened” genre. Why did Dick and Perry kill the Clutter family? There’s no real reason. It just sort of happened, and things went from there. Now look: I’m not saying that Luis Guillorme not earning a starting job is comparable to quadruple murder. I’m just saying it’s pretty close.

AP/Julio Cortez

The fact is, there’s no real reason that Guillorme hasn’t already been penciled in as the Mets starting third baseman on Opening Day. It doesn’t mean anything. It just sort of happened that way. Guillorme has done his part, but through the luck and randomness of the draw, his big opportunity hasn’t come together. Like the Clutter family, Guillorme’s — not so much death, as inability so far to win a starting job — isn’t the result of anything he’s done, and it doesn’t say anything important about him. It’s just the way things have happened to work out.

Why should Luis Guillorme be a starter on the 2021 Mets? It’s simple: he’s earned it. Think about it this way. Say it was the day before the 2020 season began, and you and I were having a conversation.

“You know, if you think about it, ‘In Cold Blood’ is really just about—” I would say.

“Shut up!” you would interrupt. “I’m trying to ask a question! Here it is: what does Luis Guillorme have to do to earn a starting job?”

What would I have answered? Keep playing great defense, improve at the plate, and walk more? Maybe I’d even give concrete numbers. “He’s got to bat .290 or better, OBP above .350,” I would say. “That’s a tall order, given that in his career so far he’s a .227/.303/.297 hitter, but with his defense, if he can be an average hitter, he definitely has to start.” Maybe I would give an even higher bar for Guillorme to clear. “He’s got to bat .300,” I could say. “Nothing less.”

Well here we are, one year later, and Guillorme just batted .333/.426/.439, good for an .865 OPS, while still playing excellent defense. So far this spring, he’s batting .455. Whatever the bar was for Guillorme to earn a starting job, he’s cleared it by miles.

So why hasn’t he earned one? It just sort of happened. Guillorme has a reputation as a good glove without much of a bat, even though by now, he can clearly hit. J.D. Davis hit well enough in 2019 that the Mets need to keep getting him at-bats. Jeff McNeil and Francisco Lindor are ensconced at two of Guillorme’s three potential positions. There’s no one underlying reason, and it doesn’t have anything to do with anything Guillorme has done wrong. It’s just the way things turned out.

That’s how things happen sometimes. The Mets, that bungling group of people out on Long Island, just can’t get things figured out. Luis Guillorme has reinvented himself as a star — he’s basically a new man — but because of all the people around him, and their different talents and circumstances, the reinvented man can’t do the one thing he’s set out to do: earn a starting job. Actually, it sounds a lot like “The Great Gatsby.”