MIAMI — For a change, Jose Reyes isn’t playing for a fourth-place team.
But instead of sipping champagne in the NL East penthouse, the former Mets shortstop is enduring life in the basement, playing for a dreadful Marlins team that has become a cautionary tale in free spending.
“When I left the Mets, I knew I was going to a better situation,” Reyes told The Post before the Mets’ 4-3 11-inning loss to the Marlins Tuesday night. “The team we put together on the field was a very good team to compete in our division, but it didn’t happen that way. Nobody thought we were going to be behind the New York Mets at this point.”
The cold reality for Reyes is the Marlins are guaranteed a fifth-place finish, with the Mets locked into No. 4 for the fourth straight year. It came after a winter in which Reyes took $106 million from the Marlins to leave Flushing.
But that was just the beginning for the Marlins, who also signed lefty starter Mark Buehrle and closer Heath Bell to contracts totaling $85 million. Bell has been among baseball’s biggest flops, with a 4.95 ERA and seven blown saves in 26 chances, entering last night.
Reyes entered play batting .284 with 11 homers, 57 RBIs and 38 stolen bases. But he’s most proud of the fact he’s played 159 games and avoided the disabled list for the first time since 2008.
“I was able to stay on the field,” Reyes said. “That is something I feel very proud about, and I think next year is going to be a better year for me.”
Reyes praised the Mets’ young talent as a reason his former club should be optimistic about the future, but said losing David Wright — who could be traded this offseason if he doesn’t receive a long-term contract from the team — would be devastating.
But Reyes doesn’t see it getting that far.
“I think they are going to sign David Wright,” Reyes said. “He has been the face of the franchise for a long time.”
But then, some would have found it unfathomable at this time last year that Reyes would have departed. The Mets never made him a formal offer after the Marlins’ upped their initial bid from $85 million to $106 million.
Reyes originally considered it a slight that the Mets didn’t make him an offer, but now seems more understanding.
“When I was a free agent, they were in a tough situation money wise,” Reyes said, referring to a clawback lawsuit the team’s owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, were facing by the trustee for the victims in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
Wilpon and Katz received a favorable settlement in March, but Reyes doesn’t want to speculate if an earlier closure to the matter would have meant a bigger push by the Mets to re-sign him.
“I’m happy where I’m at,” he said. “They treat me good here.
“We still have a lot of good pieces here. We just need to put it together on a consistent basis. This year we had only one good month, May. We need to put that on a consistent basis, we want to compete.”
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Jordany Valdespin will play second base in the Dominican winter league, Mets manager Terry Collins said. … The team’s bench coach, Bob Geren, will undergo partial left knee replacement surgery on Saturday. He will have the other knee partially replaced later in the offseason.