One New York Life

2009 Stats: 142 Games, .302/.387/.346, 1 HR.
2010 Projections: .281/.367/.350, 3 HR.
2009 Injury: Slipped on dugout steps. Burst in to flame after death stares following high-profile error.
Contract Status: 2 years, $12 million through 2011
Position: Starting 2B

On Offense: The irrational hatred for Luis Castillo’s offensive numbers continue here in Metsland. Remembered is his awful, injury-riddled 2008 in which he only played in 87 games and put up a line of .245/.355/.305. Forgotten is last year’s performance in a lost season in which he put up .302/.387/.346. Mets’ fans get way too hung up on some parts of him (his reasonable contract which people think is inflated, lack of power) and ignore the good parts of him (his ~73% efficiency on stolen bases, his ability to bunt hit, his lack of strike-outs). The knocks on Castillo are thus: he sacrifice bunts way too much for a guy with a consistently near .400 OBP and his top of the infield power. There’s no reason for Castillo to ever bunt Jose Reyes to second… ever. Between Reyes’ 80% efficiency on stolen bases and Castillo’s 40% chance to get on base — there is nothing that makes a 100% chance of an out a good thing. As for the power, people get a little too hung up on the “S” part of OPS. High power can make up for a lower on-base percentage, but low power is not a knock on high on-base percentage. Castillo’s shallow flies hit in the no-man’s land between the infielders and outfielders score Reyes or Pagan from second. If the infielders play him too far back, he’s fast enough and skilled enough with the bat to bunt for a hit. He is a really good 2-hole hitter and I really wish Met fans would shut up about him already. Hudson is a new pair of shoes that look way better in the box then they really are.

On Defense: Let’s get this out of the way right now. It was one error. Had it happened in the 2nd inning, no one would remember it. Since it happened on the 3rd out of the 9th inning with A-Rod at the plate, everyone remembers it. Mets’ fans are able to compartmentalize their irrational hatred for players in to one single moment. Beltran’s is The Strikeout. Castillo’s is The Drop. He’s a generally good second baseman who had one high-profile error last season. He doesn’t make a habit out of it. In the grand scheme of last season, the loss was meaningless to everyone except Yankee fans who, had they not won the World Series, would have used it to annoy Met fans and Met fans who, for whatever reason, feel like they have to go 6-0 against the Yankees every year to have something to hang their pants on. You don’t. You play in different leagues. Get over it.

On 2010: In the best example of how impossible Mets’ media and fans have been to deal with this offseason, they’ve been trying to trade Castillo for every pitcher or left fielder in the league. Most were floored that Castillo was not involved in the Gary Mathews Jr trade, instead retconning last season to make Brian Stokes, who had a good July and that’s about it, a much better pitcher. When run through my “Fix It” demands, the idea was the Mets could then turn around and immediately sign Orlando Hudson, who would play second and assume the “locker-room leader” role, who has a loosely-defined skill set but can apparently do things like lay their hands upon the sick and heal them and knows secret places to purchase new ACLs. This led me to do way more research on Castillo and Hudson then I had any intention of doing and, due to the awesomeness of Gmail, I was able to save my response to why the Mets preferred Castillo to Hudson. “Because Luis Castillo had the fifth best average and third best on-base percentage among Major League second baseman last year and only costs $6M, but one single error against the Yankees apparently overrules all of that. He is better at baseball then Hudson. But we should certainly include him in a trade for back-up center fielder insurance and sign a worse second baseman.”

Later in the same e-mail thread, my friend Mike owned it with the following: His runs scored was down, but wouldn’t that have more to do with the fact that nobody was there to drive him in? Not for nothing, but Cory Sullivan doesn’t exactly drive them in like a healthy Lou Gerihg. For his fielding, I looked it up. Luis Castillo and Orlando Hudson are almost identical for range factor. For those who don’t know, it’s how many outs per game (or per 9 innings, depending on which stat you look at) you are responsible for. Assuming every player at a position is going to get roughly the same # of chances to make plays in the league (so every 2b over 162 games would have about the same amount of balls hit their way), it’s a really good way to figure out who makes more plays. League avg was 4.84 per 9 innings at 2b. Luis Castillo, that useless pile of cow excrement who doesn’t deserve to be in a co-ed softball league, was 4.79. Orlando Hudson, God’s gift to defense, was 4.84. So, basically….the same guy. Also, for the 10th time, Orlando Hudson did such a bang-up job for LA that he was BENCHED IN SEPTEMBER. Of course, all anyone remembers is Luis Castillo dropping the last out of a Subway Series game. So I guess, screw actually looking things up, lets all boil it down to one play.

Does any of this prove that a 35-year-old Castillo won’t fall apart this season? Absolutely not, but I’d rather have him batting second than Orlando Hudson, power be damned.

Surefire Prediction: In a full season with Reyes hitting in front of him and Wright/Bay/Beltran hitting behind him, he’ll have more than 40 RBI and almost 100 runs scored. Mets’ fans will also have the gall to inexplicably boo him at some point when he’s hitting over .280.

Seriously? Cash that $37,000 game check for tonight and choke on it. Worst play I’ve ever seen. Hands down. Did I really spend the last two season defending this contract? Am I really this annoyed over one regular season loss? Perspective, Tom. It’s one loss. It’s not the kind of loss that will tank an entire season. He’s not going to start throwing the ball over the first baseman’s head, right? About to steal a game in Yankee stadium started by a clearly inferior pitcher and that happens.

Just what the Yankee fans needed. More ammo.

So, yeah, choke on it. Or light yourself on fire. Really either would be OK.

W – M Rivera (1-2)
L – L Castillo (9th inning, 2-out, 2-run E-P4)

Update: Saturday. OK, a night’s sleep, as usual, has added perspective. It was a terrible error, but just an error that led to a loss. It happens. It sucks, but it happens.

Glad to see he was back in the line-up today and glad to see he was properly sorry. He said he couldn’t sleep last night and kept reliving it. Good, I’d rather hear that than a patented Carlos Delgado interview saying “It’s no big deal, I just have to get back out there tomorrow, and there’s a lot of baseball left.” The oddest thing about last night’s game is I couldn’t process that the game was over for a couple hours. Baseball games just don’t end that way. Ever. It felt like there should be more game to play. The saddest part of the whole thing, other than the loss, was K-Rod losing his perfect save streak on an error.

Oh, and the ballpark is a joke.

As always, salary info courtesy of the awesome Cot’s Baseball Contracts and stats courtesy of the awesomer Baseball Reference.

C – Brian Schneider: 2008 salary – $4.9M. 2009 salary – $4.9M. Walk year: One of my favorite, least talked about statistics from this past season. Mets pitchers with Schneider behind the plate: .254/.334/.407. Mets pitchers with Ramon Castro behind the plate: .238/.307/.366. The organization is in love with Schneider. I guess he’s the best option at the moment. Castro’s knees would explode if he was asked to squat for 120 games.

Prediction: Schneider walks next year. The Mets resign Ramon Castro and a Molina.

1B – Carlos Delgado: 2008 salary – $16M. 2009 salary – $12M. Walk year. I don’t know what to make of Carlos Delgado’s 2008. He had one of the better 2nd halves that I’ve ever seen. From the day Willie Randolph was fired through the end of the season, Delgado appeared in 92 games, hit 27 home runs, 102 RBI, and put up a line of .291/.374/.597. It’s a somewhat disconcerting thought that Delgado dogged the first 70 games of the season because he didn’t like Willie Randolph, but there it is. Regardless, as power hitting 1B go, Delgado’s a bargain at $12M and even if he can spread his 27 home runs and 102 RBI out over the season instead of 90 games, he’s well worth what the Mets are paying him. I expect a pretty huge year out of Delgado. In spring training, at least, he seems much more willing to check his swing and go the other way when teams play the shift. I still find it baffling he isn’t told to put the ball down the third base line when every infielder is playing on the right side of second, but I guess that’s some sort of baseball insult I don’t understand.

Prediction: Delgado has a great season and returns to the AL as a designated hitter in 2010.

2B – Luis Castillo: 2008 salary – $6M, 2009 salary – $6M, $18M guaranteed through 2011: I find it necessary to again fully disclose that I’ve defended this contract. They are pretty much locked in to this guy so much that they let the better-in-every-conceivable-way-and-some-inconceivable-ways Orlando Hudson go to the Dodgers for an embarrassingly low $3M. This contract will sit on Omar Minaya’s head every offseason until 2012. It’s gone from head-scratching to terrible to borderline unconscionable in about 18 months. It’s way too much money for what Castillo brings to the table and is completely untradeable without the Mets eating most of it. The only possible bright-spot in this otherwise awful situation is that hopefully Jerry Manuel will threaten his life for going off on his own to sacrifice bunt with no out in the first inning. Manuel also seemed much more willing to stick Castillo in the 8-slot where he generally belongs instead of wasting him in a 2-slot that much better populated with Ryan Church or Carlos Beltran.

Prediction: The Mets make a trade-deadline bid for Orlando Hudson and send Castillo, half his salary, and a pitching prospect to the Dodgers when they’re out of it by mid-June.

3B – David Wright: 2008 salary – $5M. 2009 salary – $7.5M: Mike Francesa lit a fire under Met fans after last season by calling Wright unclutch. Most of the argument stemmed from one at-bat in last season’s second-to-last series. Against the Cubs, game tied, rookie Mancrush Daniel Murphy leads off the bottom of the 9th with a triple. Everyone in the universe is thinking “we take this, season’s over.” Wright comes up with the building rocking… takes to 3-0… foul, foul, done. It’s completely and totally unfair to put a 2nd late season collapse on him — but it was then that I knew the Mets weren’t going to get in the playoffs. Francesa fueled the fire by saying the Mets should explore trading Wright or Reyes, which kicked off the predictable phone calls, which kicked off the theme “he’s not the best young player in the league. If you were offered Chase Utley or Ryan Howard for him, you’d take it in a second.” The problem Mets fans have is the not-so-distant memory of Derek Jeter breaking in the league and winning four World Series. They got agonizingly close in his second year. What everyone immediately forgot was that Wright was The Collapse away from winning the 2007 NL MVP. He was a one-man wrecking crew in The September That Never Happened. That August and September saw him hit 12 HR, 40 RBI, 40/27 BB/K, with a line of .372/.474/.628. He’s a fantasy stud who just doesn’t hit in the last three innings. We’ve convinced ourselves that the team choked the season away (again) because the bullpen gave up lots of runs. They also did it because the team didn’t score after the 6th inning. The team OPS in innings 1-3 is .840, .761 in 4-6, .690(!) in 7-9, and .636 (166 PA) in extra innings. We can dishonestly put it all on the bullpen, but the offense fails as a team late in the game. Argue demoralization because of the terrible bullpen? Maybe… but let’s not pretend the entire problem is one-sided.

Prediction: Wright strikes out in the bottom of the ninth in one at-bat and Met fans declare that he’s a choker who we’ll never win with. The more reasonable among us ask who we’re replacing him with.

SS – Jose Reyes: 2008 salary – $4M. 2009 salary – $5.75M: I’m going to go ahead and use the same paragraph I used in the postmortem: Met fans have to understand that Jose Reyes is the over-celebrating douche that you hated in some league you played in at some point in your life. A guy bouncing around the bases, dancing, and being obnoxious is going to raise everyone’s ire. This Mets’ team has to realize that if this guy is going to be annoying that every single team in the NL East is going to get up to play them. If you’re unstoppable (like the 1986 team) that’s one thing. If you’re mediocre, people are going to revel in destroying you. The Cardinals in 2006 did not start a “JOOOSEEEEEEE JOSE JOSE JOSE” chant in the locker room because they hated the fans. The Marlins did not mistakenly come to Shea with nothing to play for the last week and kick the Mets for fun. The Phillies did not put a picture of Jose Reyes on Shane Victorino’s locker following his celebration along the basepaths with “Calm down, Jose” written on it as a joke. If you want to be dicks, that’s fine… just understand that you need to play at 125% every night and no one is going to give you an easy time of it. With that rant done, Reyes isn’t going anywhere nor should he. Also, if someone could figure why he precipitously drops off in September, it’d go a long way toward fixing the team’s problems.out his precipitous production drop-off in September.

Prediction: Reyes and K-Rod create a save dance involving props and noisemakers. Someone comes out of the crowd in Citizen’s Bank Park and spears one of them.