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Matthew Cerrone, from MetsBlog: I had a lot of questions about Luis Castillo, as you can imagine.
Michael from Tennessee asked, “If you had to do it again, would you give Luis Castillo another four-year contract?”
Omar Minaya: Well, no, not the way he played this year - of course not.
It’s easy to make decisions based upon one year’s performance, but we don’t work that way. As General Managers, we have to make decisions based upon what a player has done in their whole career. Up until that point, if I’m not mistaken, Luis Castillo had been a consistent .300 hitter with about a .360, .370 On Base Percentage, in that range, and a steady defensive player that turned a double play very well… He played well for us when we had him in 2007 - I think he hit over .300.
That being said, he did not play well for us this year. You know, a lot of times, with these long-term contracts for guys, one year they look good, one year they look bad and the next year they look good. I think that there are a lot of guys around baseball, a lot of guys who don’t look good and they turn out to be better.
Matthew Cerrone, from MetsBlog: Going back to that time, though, was there a rush to lock in a second baseman before the Winter Meetings? Or, before other trades were explored? I mean, was there some sort of urgency? I ask, because I think most fans were confused as to why the four years? I know you probably can’t revisit it too much, but was there any kind of feeling that, ‘We’ve got to lock somebody in here?’
Omar Minaya: Yeah, I mean, at the time, I think we worked hard on making sure that we were going to have an offense built on a high On Base Percentage at the top of the order… When we looked at the market place, we liked David Eckstein a lot. We tried to do a deal with Eckstein and we couldn’t get it done. We just felt that it was an important part of our offense and we wanted to lock that up as soon as possible.
Question 3, which deals the bench, will post at 11 am.
To read a full transcript of this entire interview, click here.
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he was injured for the most part, and never got any regular playing time. He didn’t play well. I’d bet he’d be closer to his career numbers in ‘09 though. Nothing wrong with OBP at the top of the order.
agreed….imagine if we got rid of beltran after 05……..
Beltran was young and good. Castillo doesn’t hit for power, has bad wheels and isn’t a good defensive player anymore. Completely different.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Castillo is never close to the same player again, and this is just the beginning of his decline.
I also have no confidence that his legs will ever allow him to move around well again.
I understand all your points but the bottom line is
we have no better/reliable inhouse options to turn to. I doubt the mets will do anything in regard to castillo as hudson will come expensive and omar will use my point of beltran in 05 to justify giving castillo another shot.
Danny, I understand that 2008 has given you reason to write what you have. But how can you confidently say Castillo has changed SO drastically in one year after such a steady, productive career. Because he’s been injured for so long and hobbling around when he’s given it a go? How many people were signalling Delgado’s decline at the end of last season, beginning of this season? Everyone was. He went out and proved us wrong, and proved that if there’s one thing we know, it’s that we don’t know what to expect. I’m in the tiny minority of people that think Castillo should play 2b next season and could very well be a high average, high on base guy. I’m not going to let his awful 2008 irrationally force me to believe that he’s washed up and done as a player.
There are a few reasons that Castillo’s case is different from Delgado’s, but I should also point out, what Delgado did this year, at his age, was fairly unprecedented. Not completely, but for and one or two dimensional player in general, its fairly uncommon to see them resurrect their careers so late after such an extended slump. It speaks to just how good Delgado has been. He was able to recover from an injury plagued 2007 season followed by a broken hand to get his stroke back and become one of the big offensive forces in the NL at age 36.
The first thing we need to establish here is that Delgado and Castillo were just on different levels. Delgado has been an elite-level run producer for the bulk of his career. Castillo had a handful of good years, but was never close to an elite-level player. Castillo’s career OPS+ is 93. He’s had an OPS+ over 100 three times in his career, and it was all the way down at 79 this last year. His career high in RBI is 49 and the last time he swiped more than 25 bags was 2002. Throw in good defense up the middle, and you have a pretty average looking career.
The big difference here though is just that Castillo and Delgado are completely different types of players. Different skills erode differently. Plate Discipline, as a more intellectual skill, tends to remain fairly well intact as players get older. This skill, Castillo still demonstrated very well for most of the year (his K/BB was 35/50 and he still had his OBP up around .350 despite a .250 BA). However, more athletically based skills often erode much more quickly, such as footspeed, agility, and batspeed. The first two were trademarks of Luis’s career up until 2008. But this year he was average-at best in all those categories. Having a guy who gets by mostly on good plate discipline is okay, but with a .308 SLG (.060 ISO), he’d better be a career Gold-Glover or a .400 OBP. Even with a rebound, its hard to see Castillo doing any better than .280 / .370 / .350 with average defense and 25 SBs. That would be tolerable, but at the same time unlikely, he’s just about as likely to continue declining and hit .220 / .330 / .270. I mean, his swing was an absolute disaster. Watching him, I’d joke with my dad that I’ve seen Ollie Perez take prettier cuts than Luis. And it seemed like he could never get the ball on the ground to the right side (say if, some speedy leadoff hitting shorstop happened to be at second with none out). All he could do in the lefty box was slap the ball to the left side or pop it up, and from the right all he could do was pull the ball. Runner on third and less than two outs wasn’t even a good RBI situation for him because outfields play him so shallow (and that’s something that even with a bounceback, likely won’t change).
When the Mets signed Castillo, this was the kind of year you’d hope he’d be having in the third or fourth year of the deal. The fact that it was his first is very discouraging. He doesn’t have the situational skills to hit 2nd anymore, and doesn’t provide enough offense, speed, or defense to justify batting him low in the order, nor does he have the versatility to ride the pine. He’s a babysitter on a veteran team.
great post sabe.
umm please just give it up with castillo. he is not going to be back, the fans HATE him, he is a cancer, and the team loses when he is around. why do you cream your jeans for this guy???
Big problems here.
No mention of the fact that you can’t use past performance as the only indication of future projection. There were a lot of Red Flags with Castillo that Omar still cannot see.
Also, too much emphasis on batting average.
But he is talking about OBP; and that’s a good sign.
That was his entire point with Castillo. His OBP has always been great.
WHo cares? He can’t get the ball out of the infield
It’s almost like he stopped even trying to get a hit. His whole game seemed to turn into trying to take a walk.
Look at his stats, that is what he has always been about. There is a place for those type of guys on some teams. IF he could have kept his numbers at career average things would have been fine. Obviously the injury never fully healed and the lack of consistant playing time really hurt.
Or maybe he’s trying to talk Castillo up so he can trade him.
If you’re another GM and you hear Omar talking about how Castillo is washed up and probably done…how likely are you to trade for him? If you hear Omar talking about Castillo’s lifetime OBP and how he may rebound and have another good year, how much more likely are you to entertain a trade offer?
your point is true the only problem I see with Omar’s comment is he says the deal was basically a bad deal. Which tells other teams no matter how much Omar talks him up he is going to pay a chunk of the salary to get rid of him.
At least he was being honest about the contract.
“No mention of the fact that you can’t use past performance as the only indication of future projection”
-so what are we supposed to use…
Well in Castillo’s case the fact he was out of shape with bad knees. I understand what you’re saying but I think 4JoeOrsulak is saying Castillo had plenty of red flags that should have tipped Omar off.
agreed as far as the injury thing is concerned….but i believe there wasnt anyone really in the 07 FA market that was a better option from the #’s standpoint. Am i right?
Well you could look at the fact that he was 32. I’m guessing if you traced the trajectory of most middle infielders there is a pretty steady decline in their defensive skills in the early 30s. The same is obviously true for base stealers. Or maybe the fact that his knees were obviously bothering him and he was coming off several years on turf. There are ways of projecting beyond just past performance.
You think Omar’s ever heard of PECOTA? I wonder.
I’m pretty certain our front office has little to no interest in metrics.
Given the fact that Omar flat out admits they were disappointed with Castillo’s performance and wouldn’t offer that contract if he had a ‘do over’, how many others think Castillo will be traded if at all possible????
I think it is clear he is going to be actively shopped. I think when Jeff Wilpon used the phrase “addition by subtraction” at his press conference with Omar, I think that is what he was referring to (Heilman and Scho as well).
The natural follow up to this question should of been. “Ok, but why 4 years”. I’d just like to hear Omar actually respond to that part.
Obviously. But it also lays out a warning to Castillo that if he does not work hard in the offseason then he won’t play…… anywhere.
yes…i agree
I would also apply that to duaner sanchez as well.
Of course you have to look at a whole career. But what Omar seems to ignore often are trends and things like how age (and PEDs in Mota’s case) affect a player.
Castillo’s OBP has been generally trending downward for quite a few years, and his ZR has been slipping even more consistently to where it is now at the lowest of his career, for both this year and last. He’s actually a liability in the field now.
Omar seems to pay attention only to the parts of a player that he wants to, but he fails to consider the whole package (including age, PEDs, character etc.).
How do you get that it was trending downward? For the Mets in 2007 his OBP was higher than his career averages. While in Minn. it was a little lower but that can be easily explained in that league and park.
I will, however, grant you his range has diminished. However, he is very experienced there and is very good at DP’s.
If you graph his OBP from 2003, when he was 27, it is mostly downhill. That year his OBP was .397. Since then, we’ve seen: .358, .362, and this year .355. That is a downward trend. In 2003 and 3 of the 4 previous years, he’s had higher OBPs.
Plus, you have to factor in his age, and health. To think he will get better at this age is unreasonable. To think that he will stay the same for a few years is crossing your fingers. To think that he will further decline is prudent.
And do you really think the starters care if he is good at DPs if he can’t get to many balls even an average 2nd baseman can? We complain about the length of the starters. Well having someone like Castillo in the field only exacerbates the situation.
Which is exactly why we SHOULD NOT get Hudson.
I agree thereal, signing Hudson would just compounding the problem.
The difference with Hudson is at least he would hit for some power.
The problem with Castillo is that his entire offensive value is tied into his OBP. He was always going to become a completely useless offensive player once his OBP dipped below .350.
And now that his defense is well below-average, he really offers you nothing.
Agreed. Isn’t Hudson injured anyway?
However, even with health questions, I would take any decent starter on a short (2 years max) contract as long as he also wasn’t ancient.
I agree with that FAH, I just don’t think Hudson is going to be that guy. I imagine in this market he’s going to be asking for 5 years. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of guys who aren’t ancient and are productive offensively and defensively, the only guy I can see on the list of free agent 2b is Nick Punto. But he only played like 26 games at 2b this year.
Punto is not a guy you want to play everyday. He’s perfect as your utility IF who can play large spells in case of injury. But he’s not the type you want to go into a season counting on as your starter.
I would love to have him.
I don’t mind the ancient part. I have no problem with an open competition at 2B next season as long as LF, SP and bullpen are addressed.
Which was my point exactly. Contrary to my disputant, OBP was the one pertinent rational Omar gave amidst a host of others which were dubious at best.
He spoke as though the Castillo debacle was a dose of bad luck, rather than an eminently predictable development. All the trends for Castillo–age, injury, stats, defense, precedent–screamed that he was headed for a rapid decline, though it was indeed slightly more rapid than even the pessimists predicted.
This leads me to believe that Omar will remain vulnerable to other such catastrophes.
I disagree. Based on his performance while with the Mets in 2007 he was right at career averages.
Agreed. I don’t know why he can’t look at all those other factors when acquiring players. Is he dumb? Stubborn? Or just prone to too much sentimentalism?
His excuses seem to fit the situation. For example, he says you have to look at the whole career when it comes to Castillo, but if you look at the whole career of Show, one would approach him with extreme caution and never give him a multi-year contract.
I’m beginning to think even the Devil Rays have a smarter front office than the Mets.
You’re just beginning to think that?
LOL, well, the Rays with their prior GM were not very smart, despite the fact they stole Kazmir from the Mets.
We had to wait for awhile to see how their new regime with Friedman would do. I would say, so far, mighty fine. You still have to acknowledge though that the foundation of the current team was laid by the previous regime. But that’s the case with many successful teams including the 2004 Red Sox. That team wasn’t ALL Theo’s doing.
And that’s one of the keys to a real good GM. He knows who to keep and who to jettison when he takes over an organization.
I kept hearing at the end of the year about guys who are good but “not for ny” or see guys that need a change of scenery, i.e. lidge - theres gotta be a team that would take heilman and castillo for a solid middle man and work out castillos salary soemhow
Look at what Eckstein signed for.
If you liked him so much, you could’ve gotten him.
Omar allowed himself to be hoodwinked, in much the same way he hoodwinked himself in the Bradford-Schoeneweiss swap
Eckstein didn’t wanna play second.
Actually he offered him a contract and he didn’t take it. Eck screwed himself by holding out for that big SS contract and it did not come. What happen a crappy contract and being traded and forced to play 2B. LOL. What a loser.
Good point. Eckstein ended up playing 2B for the D’Backs anyway.
As for Mr. OBP…. IMO, he is shot. Not only was he not healthy, he was out of shape, and he seemed to wear a permanent scowl on his face.
Omar has to play him up as much as possible obviously, though I am not sure how many teams will buy that brand.
I agree. Like I said earlier this should serve as a warning to Castillo that if he does not work hard in the offseason he will not play ANYWHERE.
Eckstein didn’t want to play 2b, he wouldn’t have signed with us. And if Omar wanted high obp guys at the top of the order why would he have even been considering Eckstein?
But anyway as productive as Castillo was in his prime he was coming off a .350 OBP in 06 and had that for most of 07 with Minny, I don’t think it would take a rocket scientist to realize a 32 year old overweight player with knee problems was probably going to continue to decline.
Castillo’s OBP with the Twins was .356 on turf. While with the Marlins 2 years before he had a .391 OBP and a .371 with the Mets last year.
Eckstein is gritty, though. Or something.
Why can’t Omar just give us a straight answer on the question of giving Castillo 4 years? Anyone with a tad of baseball sense knew that is sounded odd immediately.
What more did you want him to say? He said he would not do it again.
I’d like to hear something like “well another team had given him 3 so we we went to 4″ or “we were going to do $8mil over 3 years or $6 mil over 4 so what’s the difference” or some sort of insight into their thinking on it.
lol the politician in omar will not give that kind of specifics and leave it up to any kind of scrutiny. Gotta kind of read between the lines kind of thing. I cant remember a gm that gave those kind of specifics ever in an interview….
I don’t necessarily agree with that. I don’t think saying “other teams were interested in him and we had to be agressive in our offer” is too specific an answer for him to give.
I mean we all know that he had an offer from Houston.
i dont know what i said in my 2 RESPONSES so far but i disagree and i dont feel like writing again why.
I already gathered that you disagree, and don’t think you really need to write why.
Apparently your 2 RESPONSES already established what is correct and what is not and didn’t leave it open to either discussion or disagreement.
no more like im tired of writing my 2 responses and it “disappering”. Im open to disagreement and thats what i love about this place…im just getting fed up with responsed being gobbled up when your trying to make a point.
I hear you. That’s cool.
If castillo went to huston…would you have felt confortable with awful reyes or easley playing 2b all year……….O and btw w/o the knowledge of what they did this past year
yes
Ugh, yeah definitely not.
What I hope to see at 2B is Murphy getting his shot, and the Mets picking up a solid,steady veteran type (ie DeRosa, Loretta, those types), IF that is capable of playing everyday, or backup to Murphy.
Much as I like Easley, he is brittle as well.
Matthew Cerrone is from Metsblog.com? I had no clue. Thanks for putting that in after every time you talk.
I’d love to ask David Wight and Omar how does it feel to watch the dam n phillies be a game away from going to the World Series — if they do and I we’re Manuel I’d play that tape over and over and over all season just to stoke these guys to play smarter baseball…I’m so annoyed at this team
Whatever, Omar
Omar’s missing the real point: why do you give a big contract to a guy that has mostly been a speed buy in his career who is now overweight and was about to go through surgery on BOTH knees in the offseason. Sorry, that’s like signing a big contract for a power pitcher who’s in the middle of rehabbing Tommy John surgery. Major injuries that seriously impact the main part of a player’s game are HUGE red flags. Sorry, that’s not hindsight, that’s just common sense. Give me a break, Omar.
Reliance on speed + big Mac diet + two gimpy knees = recipe for a boatload of wasted cash.
Speed buy? Yeah, that should be ’speed guy’. Bah.
It was a ’speed buy’. Omar gave him the money too fast!
I have mentioned this over and over so those who are here don’t get on me too bad.
How about trading Heilman and Castillo for Betancourt and Barfield. Betancourt has a bad contract and had an off year. Maybe change of scenery works for him. Barfield I think has just became disenchanted completely. He even struggled in the minors this season. Bring him in and let him compete for 2B and see if he can regain his 2006 form again.
“Up until that point, if I’m not mistaken, Luis Castillo had been a consistent .300 hitter with about a .360, .370 On Base Percentage, in that range, and a steady defensive player that turned a double play very well… He played well for us when we had him in 2007 - I think he hit over .300.”
I understand what he’s saying, but I think most front office people and scouts could see that his D was declining and his knees were shot, i.e. a guy whose game revolved around speed and defense could no longer do those things. I know that Omar has to try and justify it, but really there is no possible justification for giving Castillo 4 years.
“As General Managers, we have to make decisions based upon what a player has done in their whole career.”
Yes, we realize that Omar. But you have to make decisions based on more than what they DID, you have to think about what they realistically WILL DO going forward. I don’t think Omar does this very well.
“Going back to that time, though, was there a rush to lock in a second baseman before the Winter Meetings? Or, before other trades were explored? I mean, was there some sort of urgency? I ask, because I think most fans were confused as to why the four years? I know you probably can’t revisit it too much, but was there any kind of feeling that, ‘We’ve got to lock somebody in here?’”
Not a great question Matt. You’re practically answering it for him and then letting him off the hook with ‘I know you probably can’t revisit…’ before he even answers.
How abou asking: “Why did you give Castillo four years?” and let him give the reasons. If he doesn’t, then follow up.
The problem with Castillo is that baseball is not a vacuum. Sometimes we need our 2baseman to get a sacrifice fly, which Castillo cannot do. Sometimes we need our 2basebman to get a double, which Castillo cannot do.
I’m all for getting guys with a high OBP, but I’d give up 10 -25 points to get someone who can get a ball out of the infield, like a younger, healthier Easley.
Other than the fake bunt, Castillo only has the one move: pitching wedge to shallow left field. As you pointed out, he just doesn’t have enough tools at the plate.
i’d imagine the most enviable slot to hit in any order of the lineup is the 2 hole. when you factor in jose reyes being on base, and wright beltran and delgado behind you, it’s even more so on the Mets.
therefore, you need a guy who can drive the ball, b/c they get nothing but nice fastballs. castillo is a WASTE in that spot, especially for us.
i feel the reason castillo got 4 years is b/c of Johan. once they realized that getting johan was a real possibility, they locked up his boy to show how they take care of guys very nicely financially, which led him to force the twins hand.
I agree who wont tell us anything nor should he. He can’t say we are going to look to get rid of Luis … but we all know he is going to do everything he can to dump him.
He just can not come out and say that.