CASTILLO AND PEREZ: Is It 2012 Yet?

After last night’s loss to the Atlanta Braves the Mets have fallen 7 1/2 games back and it’s hard for even the most optimistic of Mets fans to believe this team has any life left.  The play is flat, the manager makes moves that anyone who has ever played a day of strat-o-matic or looked at the back of a baseball card  would laugh at, and the front office…well don’t get me started.

Not making any trades at the deadline was painful but in a sense, understandable.  Nobody can watch how this team has hit over the past month and think they’re a Ted Lilly away from turning things around.  In fact, after seeing his last start, maybe the team was right in thinking that the lefty did not present much of an upgrade over Hisanori Takahashi for the 5th spot in the rotation.

I still believe adding someone like Lilly would have addressed two needs since Hisanori has proven to be more than effective out of the bullpen, but how would they have even made the room for him?  Get rid of Oliver Perez?  Wishful thinking.  According to Andy Martino of Newsday, that’s just not going to happen:

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For months, the team offered a flat ‘no’ to the possibility that it would cut Perez and swallow the remainder of a three-year, $36 million contract awarded him before the 2009 season. Monday, sources said that stance had not changed.”

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I’ve said over and over again that it’s embarrassing and flat out laughable that Perez wears a Met uniform.  The fact that someone who has underachieved to the point of being unplayable while epitomizing the type of selfishness that would make Bernie Madoff jealous has somehow been able to hold this franchise hostage simply amazes me.  In some ways, it’s almost possible to forget about Ollie  for at least a few days out of the week  because he’s not in our faces every day, but the same can’t be said for Luis Castillo.

While Castillo doesn’t get the rap that Perez gets, from a performance standpoint he is presently doing just as much (or as little) to hurt this team (if not more).  I’m not sure anyone thinks Castillo is a bad guy, that’s not the case I’m making, but he is currently a bad baseball player.  I heard Chris Singleton say on Monday night baseball that Luis Castillo is the last guy a pitcher would want to see up if he had a no-hitter going because he can do so much with the bat.  What???  Is Singleton in a time machine that took him back a decade to 2000?  Outfielders, with good reason, currently play the Met’s second basemen as if he was the last player up in a co-ed softball game.  If Matt Diaz took...TO READ THE REST OF THIS POST HEAD TO METSZILLA.COM BY CLICKING HERE:

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