Compare and Contrast: Cutting Dead Weight
The Mets continue to carry the albatross known as Oliver Perez on their roster, as he refuses to be demoted to the minors and the Wilpons refuse to pay between $12M – $24M for someone who is not employed by their organization.
It simply wouldn’t be “good business” to release Perez outright, considering the amount of money left on his egregious 3-year deal. Better to continue to drag him along on the team bus, and take up a precious spot on the 25-man roster.
Or is it?
The following teams had similarly bad contracts recently (within the last year and a half), and chose to cut bait. Interestingly, few of these teams can as easily “afford” to give up on high-salaried player — but they did, anyway, for the good of the team.
Most of these players were released outright, though a few were traded away on the condition that their salary would be absorbed by the team shedding the player. It is in no particular order.
[TABLE=48]
Interestingly, the Yankees don’t have much in the way of owed money to players no longer on their roster — despite the fact that many pundits regularly point to their riches as a security blanket for when they make mistakes. Other than Igawa, the Yankees owe a grand total of about $2.4M to players no longer on their roster.
After looking at what other teams have done in the way of dropping dead weight, how do you feel about the Mets’ insistence on keeping Oliver Perez and other bad contracts? One would think that if a “small market” team such as the Detroit Tigers can bite the bullet on so much money in bad contracts, that the big-city Mets would be able to act similarly.
Since the Mets don’t have a shot at the playoffs, they might as well leave him on the roster and avoid having to pay someone else the major league minimum. If I were the Mets right now, honestly I’d keep him through the end of this year and dump him in the offseason.
Of course, at the time the Mets brought Ollie back, they still DID have a shot at the playoffs… which was either (a) a completely brain-dead move, or (b) a move made by an ownership that has no particular desire to see their team win.
– checks himself into a performance institute this winter; and that
– he’s learning as much as he can from Johan Santana in Spring Training….since he’s also a lefty, and maye act as a mentor.
Oh, wait — didn’t that happen the last 3 years already?
Following this team is like Groundhog Day — only it’s not funny.
If it was possible to dump the player AND the associated contract, then yes, you’d see small market clubs dumping albatross contract all the time, and you’d see big market clubs taking more chances and holding on to more of them.
That’s not what we’re talking about here.
We’re talking about players SO bad, that the clubs drop them from the team even though contractually they are still obligated to pay the player.
In economics, it’s called a sunk cost. If the player is so bad that he’s not even performing up to the level of an arbitrary AAA call up, then you need to drop the player even though you have to eat his salary in the process.
The Mets LEADERSHIP has no ambition. NONE.
EVERY other team has THREE times the level of competetiveness THIS ‘executive’ leadership has. THE BIGGEST MOVE THIS YR was the DFA of Matthews JR……WHICH COINCIDENTALLY catalyzed a run by THE METS to the TOP OF THE NL EAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Since then a GM group which has Omar, Wayne Krivsky et al, PLUS Bob Melvin HAVE NOT MADE A SINGLE PLAYER RELATED MOVE to bolster this team . NOT BY ADDITION OR SUBTRACTION.
My expectation is that the firing of Jerry and replacing him with Backman, or Terry Collins, or Hojo, or Chip Hale, OR Bob Melvin ( I chose Hojo/Backman+ Bob Melvin) would light a fire under this team enough tokeep it competitive thru September.
-Then I would cut Castillo and give 2nd base to Justin Turner and Cora.
– Keep French and Platoon him in RF with Capt Kirk. Give Angel the CF job. Trade Beltran and Pedro Feliciano To BOSoxx for Michael Bowden and 2 players TBNL.
-Trade Barajas for a PTBNL.
-Get Dionar Navarro or (Kelly Shoppach) now.
Joe…this is where you come in. This and other blogs out there are OUR voices. Just like our votes we need to let the team know how we feel on a DAILY basis. This team needs a shake up and the last 4 years have been a complete mess in August and Sept from an executive standpoint.