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In a report for FoxSports.com, Ken Rosenthal explains why the Mets may be stuck with Luis Castillo, who is due $18 million over the next three seasons, in a market where Pat Burrell just signed a two-year, $16 million deal.
According to Rosenthal, “In theory, the Mets could assume enough of Castillo’s salary to make him, say, a $2 million a year player. However, they’re already paying two closers… and two managers… Paying two second basemen – say, with the signing of free agent Orlando Hudson - would be a stretch.”
Rosenthal believes the Mets will next sign a starting pitcher, followed by a utility infielder, such as Alex Cora, David Eckstein or Craig Counsell.
Last month, WEEI radio in Boston said the Mets are pursuing Cora to be their utility infielder.
In 75 games for the Red Sox in 2008, the 33–year-old Cora hit .270 with a .371 OBP, while playing second base and shortstop.
In his 11–year career, he has played short, second, 
left field, third base and first base.
I know people will look at Cora’s age, but it is difficult to find a young utility infielder. Also, I believe it is wise to have a veteran in this sort of role, because of the steady-hand and experience.
If the Mets end up with Cora, that’s fine. If not, I won’t lose sleep over it. That said, if the Mets are not going to sign Hudson, and are stuck with Castillo, I’d prefer they sign Eckstein over Cora, because he gets on base more frequently and he strikes out less, and I think his style of play and attitude would be good for the clubhouse.
By the way, Rosenthal also reports on Adam Dunn; the lack of action in St. Louis, and how it could impact Albert Pujols; the market for Jon Garland and 2B Brian Roberts; and the future of Kris Benson, who has not pitched in the majors since 2006.
Speaking of infielders…
The Padres have interest in Eckstein and free-agent Omar Vizquel, according to the team’s GM, reports MLB.com.
Lastly, the Phillies signed 2B Marcus Giles to a minor-league deal, worth $600,000, according to the Denver Post.
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Get Grudzy or fork it out and get Wiggy for LF and let Murphy be the super sub.
Why make Murphy a sub rather than sending him to AAA to develop as a fielder (at whichever his chosen position may be)?
He’s not useful as a super sub unless he can adequately play more than one position. And if his second best position is 3B, then there’s not a big need for that.
I like both Wiggy and Grud, but neither of them plays SS, and we need someone who can fill in for Jose.
the same eckstien who refused to play 2b over here only to be traded midyear to play 2b for the diamondbacks……
becoz of him we’re stuck with this bum.. i wouldn’t even pick up his phone call!!!!
I wish i knew why it seems that dunn is getting the barry bonds treatment….something i guess we will never know about..
The Mets are going to let Castillo’s contract stand in the way of signing Hudson? Give him his $18 M and send him packing, is there really a difference between giving him the money now or paying him $18 M over 3 yrs to hit .250 with 15 RBI a season?
We’re not the Pittsburgh Pirates, we can afford to write off his contract
aparently not or we would have had hudson already…
We still have a budget. You pay Hudson 4/32-40 and Castillo 6 million a year then you are paying a very average Hudson 16 million a year to play 2B and you have lost another 8-10 million you could have used to actually upgrade the offense in LF or the SP.
Damn you for your reasoned thought TRS86! I wish we could just give him his walking papers, but we are not the Yankees and this is not a video game. But ifthe Wilpons did do this, I would not mind. O-dog does smell like a potential Crapstillo but I would love to take my chances rather then seeing Luis in a Mets uni.
Not to mention but the Yankee’s hold on to these guys a long time too. Pavano, Igwa, even Giambi. It’s not like they say, well he stinks lets cut him.
if we are stuck with castillo i hope he pulls a beltran…..
he pulls a beltran?? u mean 41 homers and 120 rbi’s?? doubt that with my life..
lol yea i guess 41 hrs and 120 rbi’s is a little bit of a stretch….lol
no what i was referring to was beltrans first year here was injury plagued…the very next year he looked unstoppable.
lol, i will alos doubt castillo will be unstoppable!!! but i knew what u meant it was all in fun!! but honestly, i too want him to shut us all up.. but i doubt that wit my life too..
beltran was young and talented. neither of which embodies castillo
well they are only 2 years apart….cant argue with talent but im sure beltran would like to forget 2005 as im sure castillo would like to forget 2008
Castillo has been a good defensive player and a solid tablesetter for a long time. The weakness in his game is that he is powerless. But his job has always been to get on base — and he’s been very good at that.
You’re being unfair to him based on one bad and injury plagued season.
The original version of this post on my blog reader had a bit more praise for Eckstein. Did Matt sober up before posting this final version?
As a utility guy coming off the bench, I could possibly live with Mr. Grit. That’s about the only scenario where signing him would not make me puke.
yea and then mr. grit will get injured like usual…im with real..get grudz.
Grudzielanek offers no versatility on the bench. At least Eckstein or Cora (who is a terrible hitter and just an average fielder at best) can backup Reyes at SS too.
Do you guys do any research? Grudzy has played 600 games at SS and played some 3B as well.
Can we got to the Cardinals with castillo and swap for mulder…
also i have a fantastic trade idea:
Delgado,Fernando Martinez,Wilmer Flores,Parnell, and Castillo
for
Pujols and Mulder
u realize some of us can see ue post??
give up our entire farm system for one guy… i dnt think so dude lol.. u should rele think before u post something
U forgot Reyes ,Wright,Holt and Matt Cerrone !
And what about Jerry Manuel and Alomar Sr. for LaRussa.
No way the Cards give up Pujols without either Reyes or Wright as the starting point.
You should just stop that sentence after the word Pujols.
Agreed. But that being said I would give up that package and possibly more to get Pujols. I would probably even give up Wright or Reyes to get Pujols.
No doubt. You empty the farm system for Pujols. But unfortunately for us, our farm system wouldn’t come close to acquiring Pujols.
I’m not even sure Wright + our top 3 prospects would get it done.
Absolutely.
i dont think i can handle watching castillo slap grounders to the pitcher every time up…ending an inning, forcing the pitcher to lead off. hudson is worth the money just to not have to see this
How about when he squares to bunt and pulls the bat back and takes a strike? I always love watching him do that.
Ha! I love it…..or rather, I hate it when he squares only to take a strike.
The pitcher must be thinking, “ok Luis you really faked me out their, your motorized walker will really help you fly down the line to beat a bunt out”
Oh slappy how I resent seeing your for the next 162 games, or rather 50 games.
Or how about when he chooses to wait on a slowly hit ground ball instead of charging it, resulting in the runner at first being safe?
what’s the point of being a big market team if you can’t eat mistakes?
I agree. We should sign Hudson and use Castillo as a bench player with the intention of moving him by the trade deadline.
Knowing his injury history, if he goes down, who takes his place? Last year we had Easley. Currently we have no good option at 2B. Sign Hudson!
As mentioned they are eating mistakes right now in terms of having Wagner signed while hurt, and to a lesser extent having two managers on the payroll. The Mets may be looking at cutting Marlon Anderson as well…
I’m guessing dumping Castillo will be more reasonable after 2009 when its two years. They basically did the same thing with Roger Cedeno.
Say hello to Ramon Martinez
the 36 year old veteran minor leaguer with a career ba of 264? and has played more than pro games 3 times in his 10 year pro career… that one?
same one.
ay yi yi.. i think id rather take my chances with mr. no knees
I’m talkin bout MI for the bench
I feel we will be stuck with someone just as bad. Omar seems to not be in on any of the reasonable contracts that were signed for 2B/SS backups.
Jerry Hairston Jr signed with Cincy for 1y 2MM. Wouldnt that be a fine guy to have in this situation? Punto would have been excellent.
by the time Omar gets around to that roster spot there wont be anyone left. Ramon Martinez indeed.
wow…a post about Eckstein and no mention of grittiness. Super impressed!
“and I think his style of play and attitude would be good for the clubhouse.” = gritty
damn…you’re right…an “undercover” gritty reference
very subliminal
how about this:
Delgado + Castillo to the Angels for Sean Rodriguez. We eat 4M of Castillo and sign Dunn in the 10M range.
Dunn replaces Delgado’s production.
Rodriguez can’t be any worse than Castillo (the same can be said about most living mammels).
Current salary = 12M + 6M = 18M
New Salary = 10M + 4M + 0.5M = 14.5M
Sign Eckstein / Grudz with the difference. If Rodriquez can’t cut it full time we have a young MI UT. If he’s decent then this is still better and he is cheap enough until something better comes along.
That almost makes sense, if the Angels are thinking to contend.
If Louie called Omar to say he didn’t want to get traded and that he would be working hard to get back in form, I’d think he has been motivated to actually do that. Whether it actually happens, who knows.
One thing is for sure, he better not start off slow. If he starts off the first 2 weeks batting .150, the fans will get on him and it could be all downhill from there.
Yeah, he needs to start off hot.
Luis is lucky that the Mets will start on a road trip cause that way he will have a chance to start hot !
why didnt the mets at least take a look at marcus giles? he’s definetly worth a minor league contract but now hes a phillie
The thing nobody commented on is the scariest: Phillies sign Marcus Giles. All those former Braves kill us, even if they’re half in the grave themselves.
I promise you Marcus Giles makes our lives miserable at some point during the ‘09 season.
For some reason or another Marcus Giles is done. So don’t lose any sleep over that move.
Yeah, that reason would be: no mo ‘roids.
“For some reason or another Marcus Giles is done” aka stonger steroid policy
Ha! Love it!
It doesn’t matter. Even when Braves of the rivalry era have one eye dangling from its socket, they find a way to hit a pinch hit go ahead grand slam against us.
He’s done against all other teams, I agree. Against us, be very afraid.
Mulder is a FA, no no need to trade for him.
As for Castillo, he’s a “Catch-22″ situation—If his off-season Rehab program doesn’t help, and he’s still limping (strange that we haven’t heard a word about how it’s going), then he’s worthless in trade.
If it DOES work, and he reports to camp healthy and productive, then he’s worth every bit of his $6 mil per salary, and there’s no reason to trade him.
If Castillo is injured which he will be at some point – who plays second?
Well, that can be said about anybody. If Moises Alou was healthy, he would have been worth every penny. Same with El Duque. Same with Pedro.
Omar critics would say: All bad gambles—
Except of course Pedro.
exactly why nothing will happen with him until ST at the earliest.
For all the guff we give to Castillo, he did very well for the Mets when he came over in 2007. IF he is healthy this year and the fans actually give him a chance, I bet he bounces back to his career norms. I think it’s hillarious that the fans seem to blame Castillo for everything that went wrong.
He is a vortex of negativity. Put em in the bathroom.
Ah, Casino.
It’s actually from “A Bronx Tale,” I believe
You are so right… ooops.
There is always at least one whipping boy. That’s just the way it goes. We’ve all seen it with Shawn Green, Kaz Matsui, Aaron Heilman, Guillermo Mota, etc.
Conventional wisdom is a hard thing to change.
Castillo was 1 win below average in 2007 and 1 win below replacement in 2008. He was so bad in 2008 that it’s easy to forget that he was pretty bad in 2007 (mostly because of bad defense).
What was wrong with Easley? He was pretty decent the last couple of years and he has some pop in his bat too.
he’s 40,an injury risk and can’t field anymore.
He has never made the playoffs ,he’s bad luck , he was the reason why we dont made it to the playoffs. LOL
Damn Willie,backstabber. I thought he was
one of you guys.
He’s terrible, and he’s an injury risk.
Not wanting to drop Castillo and sign Hudson isn’t a matter of being cheap- it’s a matter of not wanting to solve the problem of one bad contract by adding another. Hudson’s contract is going to look awful in a year or two if not this year. Because of the lack of decent 2B on the market, someone is going to give him three or four years at close to 10 mil per. I really hope it’s not us. We’d be paying for someone into their mid 30s at a position where players age rapidly and poorly. His defensive reputation is based almost entirely on his range which already dropped off severely last year and will keep dropping as he ages. People talk about his pop, but away from Arizona, one of the most hitter-friendly parks in baseball, he slugged .380 last year and .369 the year before that. Just as a standard for comparison, Schneider’s career SLG is .376. So, basically, we’re talking about someone whose already suspect defense range from last season will probably be a real liability before the end of his contract and who currently has Brian Schneider type power away from a ridiculous hitters park and whose power is likely to continue to decline. Is he an improvement over Castillo? Yes- but a 16 million dollar a year for the next three years improvement if we eat Castillo’s contract and pay Hudson what we’d have to? Not even close.
Yippie, more logic on Metsblog.
This is exactly right. No doubt that Hudson is better than Castillo. But the numbers difference does not show a 10 million dollar difference. At best we bring in a guy like Grudzy and keep working with Murphy at 2B occiasonally. Then if Castillo stinks you dump him and Grudzy starts with slighty worse numbers than Hudson at 8 million cheaper.
If only we had someone to come out of nowhere to take the job like Jose Valentin did in 2006. He was just what the doctor ordered that year.
Murphy is not going to be playing 2B. The powers that be have more or less already said he’s not a good fit there.
Does the Dr. have inside info on this?
The problem with paying Hudson shouldn’t be that we have Castillo, it should be that Hudson likely isn’t going to be worth what he signs for, unless he’s signing for 7-8 million over 2 or 3 years at the most and will likely end up being a more expensive version of Castillo. Poor defense and meh offense, and his offense was in a pretty notorious hitters park.
Nevermind, kidfromqueens beat me to it.
However, Castillo IS part of the reason. You have a guy that could bat .290 and have a .370+ OBP in Castillo already at 6 million signed. Then to bring in a guy who will hit .290, .370 with a little more power and keep the other guy is just plain silly.
My favorite Castillo game is the one where Reyes leads off the 1st inning with a double and Castillo gives himself up and bunts. Why do that? I can see it in a close game in the late innings only.
Because that is NL ball. There are MANY more ways to score from 3B than 1B. That is basically what Loduca did in 2006. What bothers me is when Willie and Manuel to an extent would bunt Reyes to 2B. That’s dumb.
While on the one hand I agree about there being a lot of ways to score I don’t think bunting your #2 batter with your lead off guy on and no outs is ever the right decision. But I think the problem is more that our #2 batter can’t hit the ball out of the infield so bunting is his only choice. Which is why I think Castillo should absolutely not be batting #2.
That also depends on the style of the #2 hitter. If Wright or Beltran were hitting #2, you would not see that (maybe once in a blue moon with Beltran). Castillo needs to find ways to try to help any way he can since he is not capable of hitting the ball out of the infield. He figures he might as well advance the runner instead of risking a double play or a force play.
That being said I don’t understand why we would sign someone like Eckstein or Counsell and then bench them. If we’re going to be paying Castillo plus another player we might as well play the better player every day. it’s stupid to have a better second basemen sitting on your bench and refuse to play him because you made a poor contract decision.
Also why in the world would we sign Alex Cora? He’s an older more expensive version of Argenis Reyes. We might as well have just kept him, at least awful reyes has an outside chance of improving offensively.
Come on Gina, we know the hate for Castillo but even injured Castillo’s numbers were WAY better than Counsell and very similar to Eckencrappy.
Counsell and Castillo’s offensive numbers are practically identical, Counsell even had a higher walk percentage this year. And Counsell plays all world defense, he’s far and away a better player than Castillo was last year. Not that it’s hard to be better.
Eckstein on the other hand is terrible you’re right. I didn’t realize his defense was so bad. If Castillo can keep his obp above .355ish he’ll probably be more valuable.
Come on the guy was healthy and hit .226. I know I don’t like BA but this is silly. He is a career .255 .343 hitter even when healthy. Castillo was injured all season and still had a higher BA and the same OBP. Castillo even had a higher SLG percentage. Counsell is garbage. I would rather have Grudzy or Cora if those are the options.
Why not pull a Willie Mays Hays on Castillo during spring training. Have some guys take him out in the middle of the night and leave him in the parking lot……..
In all seriousness, why would the Mets not want to get Eckstein or Counsell rather than Cora? Both of the previous have rings and experience which the Mets need more than anything. They were key members of championship teams, which Cora has never been.
I hate to bring this up, but stuff like this makes me wonder if Omar doesn’t really prefer latino players in this situations. This clubhouse needs more leadership and fire, which Eckstein could bring. I don’t know about Counsell or Cora in those 2 areas, yet all I have heard is Omar likes Cora to be the utlity IF. You have to start wondering what motivates Omar to choose who he chooses if the availiablity of all 3 is equal.
Castillo has 2 rings
Cora hit .270 with a .371 OBP last season. Better than Eckencrappy, Counsell and Castillo.
yeah Cora is a really weird player. His obp was .371 last year, but the year prior it was .298. His bb rates fluctuate insanely from year to year. 9.5 bb% last year compared to 3.3% the year before. His lifetime obp is .312.
Those numbers are well higher than his career average and occurred in only 152 at bats.
I’d expect more along the lines of his crappy career line of 245/313/348. He’s not at the age where he’s all of a sudden learned to hit. He just happened to play better than usual while being used sparingly.
I have said all along that if Castillo is here next year he needs to hit in the 9 spot. That free’s up Schnieder to do what he does best, clear the pitcher.
Also, no matter what Castillo is going to see a lot of pitches and have a good OBP. This puts him in position to be on a lot in front of Reyes. It’s like puting him in the leadoff spot but limiting his plate apperances.
I agree 100%.
I’m usually opposed to the idea of putting a hitter up ninth — because my theory is that you want your best hitters getting the most plate appearances.
But your logic merits some thought. I’m not convinced yet but I will have to think this through.
I think that IF the Mets have strong bench, which they may if they sign another LF, this is even better as you would be pinch hitting in the 8 spot with a good OBP guy behind you before you turn the order over.
I would prefer Eckstein to Castillo. At the very least he would play half the games at 2nd which is much better than Castillo playing all of them. I agree totally that Castillo should never, ever, under any circumstances bat 2nd again.
Look at their stats and come back to me on that. Eckencrappy is no more healthy or better offensively than Castillo.
I like Grudzy for the back up. Then see what Castillo has left, or if he will even be physiically able to play.
Most important is having a viable guy on hand that can start (think Valentin in 2006). Not a spare part pressed into FT duty.
Of course, the absolute best situation is having a young guy in reserve waiting to take the job. But, unless Murphy gets the nod, do the Mets have a 2B in the system better than A. Reyes?
The worst situation is probably paying Hudson 10 mill a year to stink just as bad.
We might have second basemen better but I imagine they’re years away. The only guy I can think of is Greg Volez and he’s no where close to ready.
Reese Havens may come faster than Veloz.
yeah but they have to decide on a position for him first. I’m still hoping they move him to catcher.
castillo can be easily absorbed with manny in the lineup
are people serious with names like Alex Cora, Eckstein, Counsell, Marcus Giles, etc being better options than Luis Castillo?
Met fans love to hate…but at least hate with some logic
Why is there no mention of Rich Aurilia? He’d be a perfect fit for the Mets. He’s RH, plays every position in the infield, and would give Castillo legit competition for 2B during spring training. And he’s from Brooklyn!
I haven’t seen his name connected to the Mets at all. Doesn’t anyone notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!!
If it is either Eckstein or Cora, (or I should say) if Eckstein is willing to come here to back up, then bring him on board. I would have rather had him than Castillo last year to begin with.
Eckstein would be perfect for us, providing leadership and a backup shortstop if (gulp) anything ever happened to Reyes.
Cora is a career backup, and I would not feel comfortable with him playing extended starting time if he needed to. But if he is being offered a starting job elsewhere, then I cannot see Eck coming here.
Turthfully, I have always like Counsel too, but I would not be too mad if Omar picked Cora over him.
Somebody correct me if I am wrong but didn’t Willie get a job as the bench coach for Milwaukee, so how are we still paying him if he got a job?
Willie would have had to stayed unemployed for 2 years i think, to receive the rest of his money on his contract?