Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Lefty available cheap: Oliver Perez released by Mets
Posted by Mat KovachIf a sunk cost is released in New York, does it echo? In the Mets case...yep.
On the heels of making Louis Castillo available to the rest of baseball, the Mets did the same with a left-handed pitcher. So, in the most likely case, the Mets will pay these two about $18M this year to play for another team. Thankfully, the New York teams have plenty of money. What. What? Bernie who? Weekend at Bernie’s is underrated but why mention it…oh, Bernie Madoff?
Ouch.
But Oliver Perez was supposed to be the next Koufax, according to his agent’s thoughtfully-prepared binder. Nope, this isn't just a case of attempting to get as much money for a player as an agent can. "Perez is going to be great! Sign here, please." And they did!
With Castillo and Perez, the Mets broke my fourth golden rule of baseball: Don’t give players more money than they are worth. Unless, of course, they are undeniably worth it. Those two very obviously were not. It would been very easy to sign players for contracts of lesser value that would have had the same projected value.*
* No, we can’t predict how well they players would have played, but we can certainly say the Mets could have signed players for cheaper contracts with the same predicted results.
The objective of any team should be to sign as many players as possible to contracts that they will end up being underpaid for. The Mets got out of that mode for a while, but that seems to be the least of their money problems during that time.
Ironically, both Perez and Castillo many now be worthwhile choices for other teams. They can be signed for rock-bottom prices and little risk. The Mets have given an additional, low-risk, option to their opponents. The fail is strong on these moves.
Indians fan, member of the Duane Kuiper Fan Club, Spitball Researcher, Contact me on twitter, @siddfinch, via email or avian carrier
Mat, of course you’re right, but in this case the Mets had little choice but to clean house. From a stats standpoint, you’d like to keep both Castillo and Perez for depth, but that would make for a very complicated clubhouse. New management, new era. I still like what they’re trying to do there.