NY Baseball Digest: Is Castillo suffering from the Dropped Popup?
…i thought castillo was a bad second baseman long before the dropped pop-up, and rooted for him to be traded last winter, and again this winter… i mean, i want him to succeed, so long as he’s on the Mets… but, he’s just not that good, end of story…
Castillo was the Mets MVP in 2009.
which is like being the american spelling bee champion of kids who cant speak english, my point is it doesnt matter, he was MVP of a 2009 team that was horrible and played no meaningful games past June, I could not care less what Castillo or anyone did last year for the Mets it was a lost season
you do realize just about everyone from that team is back again this year, correct?
what does that have to do with castillo being the mvp last year?, you said that not me, and no until I see Beltran playing and playing well we dont have a full team back right away. Look its great to be positive and look on the brighter side of life, until they show me on the field a change, and have people stop making excuses for the team, than ill think positive
He’s not that bad either. He’s not Chase Utley, but that’s fine.
Um, he’s terrible for the price. Which is not his fault, but still he sucks and we’re stuck with him until Reese Havens is too good not be playing or until 2012, whichever comes first.
I don’t care what he’s paid. I care how much he contributes, which is a decent amount. Certainly not enough to worry about replacing him with the lackluster options that are available anyway.
The Mets got him on the downside of his ability. The contract, mediocrity, and that pop-up last year have made him the target Heilman was; he is in a no-win situation. I am sure he was hoping to get moved as much as the fans want him moved out.
Agreed,
That said if he shows up in shape and plays like he did all of last year, i think he will be an after thought..
He is just another of the reasons why the Mets M U S T get off to a good start. If they do, nobody will care too much about him – that, or some other major distraction so the fans will focus elsewhere.
If he drops a similar popup like he did last year, then he will most certainly not be an afterthought.
Castillo signifies what is wrong with the Mets.
Signed to a ridiculous contract for an aging player with bad knees and overweight.
Drops a pop up against the Yanks to lose a game (he will always be remembered for that).
The Mets inability to trade for.
The Mets unwillingness to eat his contract and get rid of him.
He signifies the dysfunction in management.
If the Mets don’t win this year, it won’t be because of Luis Castillo. He’s just one guy, and he’s not that bad. His contract may stink, but he’s still a guy who can hit .300 and be patient behind Reyes at the top of the lineup. I can live with that.
Would I rather have gotten Hudson? No doubt, but if Castillo is what we have, we should be fine at 2B.
I agree. Castillo was hitting .300+ with a carousel of different lead-off men in front of him and Wright having his most horrid year behind him. He’s overpaid, yes, but please don’t fault him for the lousy season we had in 09.
Don’t underestimate any players ability to impact a season.
Luis Castillo’s 4-year contract is the worst contract the Mets have handed out since they signed Vince Coleman. When will the Mets learn?
You don’t give 4-year deals to a player who: (1) is not great defensively, (2) has no power, and (3) whose only real offensive asset is his diminishing speed ESPECIALLY when he had operations on both his knees right before you signed him
It was a bad deal when he signed it and even worse each succeeding year.
Really…. I’d argue that Pedro’s 4 year deal was an albatros and an awful contract. Same with Mosis Alou. At least Castillo is on the field and producing some sort of value.
I’m with Mark4212 on that one… Castillo’s contract is bad but not even 1/2 as bad as Pedro’s was.
You act as if the Mets have exclusivity on giving out bad contracts. Remember Barry Zito? Were you one of the rabid faithful that was ready to run Omar out of town when the Mets did not agreessively pursue him? Look how that turned out. You think the Theo and the Red Sox would like to revisit their decision on JD Drew? Look at the situation they’re in with Mike Lowell — he’s old, injured, slow and they owe him $12MM for this season and the only spot they have for him is coming off the bench to spell Beltre or pinch hit. Pure genious. I’m not defending every move that the Mets have ever made — and I agree that Castillo’s contract was a bad idea at the outset — but the fact is that, just like a lot of business decisions made outside of baseball over the last few years whem money was abundant, there have been a lot of bad moves made by guys that are paid to know better.
my problem with him has been range issues cause of injuries, and the balls that doesn’t even get touched, I dont hate him for the drop up, I obviously didnt like it, but I got over it. I dont hold a grudge over one bad play, but consistent bad play on defense regardless of his offensive prowess, is what gets me angered. Just because he isnt the worst 2B in the league, should make me happy he is still here? no thats not how it works. Whatever the case maybe he is here, is not going anywhere, cause no other team wants him, so I have to root for him cause I want the Mets to do well. But he and the rest of the question marks get one more shot at this, I am not sure how he can improve something like his range that has been deteriorating over time, but if he does great, if not he isnt the most glaring problem the team has, but he could be part of it. But I am looking forward to the team to prove everyone wrong, including myself
Castillo at 2nd base is NOT the defining reason on whether we win or lose this year (or the past 2 years). He’s adequate at 2nd base. I wish we had better, but he’s adequate enough. It’s all about pitching! IF the Mets get solid pitching from 2 through 5, then people will shut up about Castillo, because we will be winning many more games than we lose..
I am still having trouble understanding why the Mets cannot act like a big market team. The Angels ate $21mm to get rid of Gary Mathews Jr., the D-Backs just ate about $10mm on Byrnes, the Dodgers ate like $18mm to ditch Andruw Jones, etc. If they felt like 2B needed to be upgraded spend the $5mm on Hudson. Don’t identify 2B, Catcher and SP as areas where you need to improve and then do nothing.
The thing a lot of people are missing here is that money is a big time issue. They shed almost $30mm in payroll and added maybe $10mm-12mm. The team won’t come out and say it but they are in cost cutting mode.
If you don’t understand that Castillo contributes where GMJ didn’t and thatt they _didn’t_ identify 2B as a place they needed to upgrade, then you probably won’t.
I don’t believe they are in cost cutting mode. They didn’t over-spend in a poor FA market. 2 of the 3 top players were outfielders so they werne’t going to sign 2 of them. Lackey was quick to sign with Boston who were going to land a Top FA as well.
After that the market was flooded with terrible players looking for big contracts.
Keep drinking the cool aide that Omar and Wilpon are selling.
Right i’m drinking the cool-aid.
Personally i’m ecstatic that Joel Pinerio and Fat Molina aren’t on the 2010 mets, and won’t be on the 2011 Mets. I’m also glad they didn’t hand out a 5 years 85 million dollar contract to a 31 year old pitcher who hasn’t thrown more then 175 innings in either of the past 2 years… Or 10 million on a pitcher that hasn’t recorded a major league Pitch in over a year.
I’m not drinking any cool-aid and think they make 100 good moves by not handing out crappy contracts to crappy players to appease a fan base who is drinking the Media’s “Mets have no clue” cool-aid.
yeah its the medias fault, they dont know what their doing, always blame everyone else but the team, blue and orange through and through huh, the team needs to be accountable and their fans have to stop making excuses for whats wrong, and what has been wrong and the team has to blame themselves. thats a problem in this country, everyone blames everyone else for their problems, when something goes wrong its cause this happened or that happened, the Mets and a lot of fans are just like that, oh it was the starters fault, ok we added Santana, oh no it was the bullpen’s fault, ok we got K Rod, oh it was all these injuries, before the injuries there was clear problems, but lets just blame the injuries and when everyone is back it will all go away. Whats this years excuse going to be? when will they be accountable and change the way they operate, thats when fans like me will be positive, you want to have your pom pom’s on all the time, thats fine, but dont tell me its the media, or the writers fault, I watched in horror during the Minaya press conference for the Adam Rubin debacle, nobody made up anything I saw it live, I was listening live during the Beltran conference, all the medical mishaps etc… I can go on and on the Mets have absolutely no clue what they’re doing and if you dont see it your fooling yourself
I’m not saying the Mets aren’t at fault for a numerous amount of things, from PR to past off-season moves.
The teams past off-seasons haven’t been good, and have been very short sighted, going for big signings to fill 1 hole, while not addressing other ones. This off-season that is wrapping up i actually think they didn’t do a poor job. I thought this was the first offseason they did a Good job in the last 2-3 years. While in the last 2-3 they made the big splashes, they didn’t address anything and/or made terrible decisions on players. (picking up delgado’s option and not going hard after teixeria, Alou, Ollie P etc etc). They would make a big splash and fix one hole, while leaving another 4-5 holes on the team go unaddressed. While they did that this year they actually solved 1 problem with Bay, and made 2 good signings that could make the bullpen formitable.
This past offseason, they haven’t over committed anything to anyone except Bay they didn’t over-spend on guys who aren’t good like Pinerio or Wolf or nick johnson or anyone… But you get posts all day long from the Media that they didn’t have a clue this offseason.
Rip the mets for being a disaster with the media and always handling everything incorrectly, and not having a sense of what their fans want (in terms of the ballpark and look and feel). But this offseason they did the right thing, and didn’t spend money on players who weren’t worth it.
I agree with you to a point for this year, but my point has been, do something positive on the field and via moves and the writers will have nothing to write about. Not over spending for mediocre talent, may work out well in the end, but it still looks as ” doing nothing” and for that I dont blame the media for writing bad things, cause it does look that way and for all the past things they did, thats what they get. Winning will solve everything, and since there are no games yet, all they have is what negative has been. I wasnt blaming just you for the media thing it was a lot of people, who were blaming everything on the writers, it starts and ends with the team winning, until that happens this is what they get, and I cant argue with them
I think METSopotamia hit the nail on the head with no accountability within the organization.
I agree to some extent that this was not a great free agent class. I just feel that the Mets have some gaping holes that needed to be filled and were not. After the last three seasons (two chokes and one mess) we were due to see some change here. I think bringing back Cora and Tatis were mistakes. Need fresh blood. I also think that signing Hudson, Marquis and Molina would have complemented the existing roster very well. None of them are difference makes on their own but combined with what they already had it would have made for some hope.
Back in October Jeff Wilpon said changes were coming and we just didn’t see it. Hoping that everyone comes back healthy is not a plan.
I like the Bay signing but in reality all he does is replace Delgados bat. They NEEDED to do more. That is just my opinion.
“Drops a pop up against the Yanks to lose a game (he will always be remembered for that).”
There are a ton of similar posts. Just let it go. It serves nothing. Dislike him for any number of reasons but just drop this as a point of venom. Players make errors, some lose games. Look at Holliday in last year’s playoffs. Which was at a worse time: that or Castillo’s? Yet, the Cards resigned him to a large contract and the fans here welcomed him back. Holliday is a better player and Castillo has deificencies that you can remark on; but just drop this. It’s petty.
Exactly, they are all human beings they will make errors, and not come through when needed, it happens, deal with it and move on, holding onto bitterness from wasted opportunities and grudges will not help anyone.
“Is Castillo suffering from the Dropped Pop-up?”….
Who cares about him – what about ‘our’ suffering?!!
It ‘pains’ me every time i see him out there wearing our uniform – just as it did to see the likes of Aaron Heilman. I viewed Heilman the same way i do Castillo – and we all know what happened to our WC hopes in 2006 (‘our’ year)!
Ugh, when will management realize that it’s best to cut ties with certain players?! What was management ‘thinking’ then – with Heilman – and what are they ‘thinking’ now – with Castillo? Are they waiting til after he ‘completes the cycle?!’
And, people ask why Mets fans are so frustrated/negative?!
Following the Mets is kind of like watching the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ – going into another season without our needs being ‘met.’
Anyway, aside from Castillo (and hoping that i don’t have to say ‘i told you so!’), i look forward to watching – and have ‘high’ expectations for – the rest of the team!
Any fan of Castillo who thinks that the Dropped Pop-Up is the basis for his unpopularity
just doesn’t get it. No degree of offensive skills can make up for his horrible fielding. Anyone who chooses to overlook that his presence on the playing field has taken its toll on a fragile pitching staff just doesn’t understand the game of baseball.
Well said.
I second that, well said.
Whether he is or not, I SURE AS HELL AM….
I am not being baited into another Castillo debate. But…saying Castillo was our MVP last year is an absolute joke on a few levels.
The overall fact that we have one of the highest payrolls, with so many obvious holes, is an indictment to management.