For Alderson, Mets fans played role in Castillo’s release

New York Mets GM, Sandy Alderson, spoke with Kevin Burkhardt of SNY about the release of Luis Castillo. He made some interesting comments, one being on what helped to factor in the decision: Bad blood between fans and Castillo.

When Burkhardt spoke to Gary Apple on SNY he had this to say on what factored in the decision:

It was more the history.

I understand you want to make the fans happy. After all, you want to get as many people to the ballpark as possible. The more moves you make to appease them, the more likely they are to come. Sort of like “If you fire him, they will come”. However, if he is the best player you have, you cannot get rid of Castillo just to make the fans happy. You can make them just as happy, even more so, by getting rid of Oliver Perez. After all, Perez is public enemy numero uno.

Other factors included evaluating where Castillo is today offensively and defensively. Well, we all know defensively he has lost a lot of range. He is going nowhere with his defense. Offensively, you can make some type of argument. He did hit .286. A pretty good number by Castillo’s standards. I find it weird how even Alderson says nobody has really separated themselves in the race for the second base position. Yet Castillo managed to get cut. According to Alderson, this will just give the other players a chance to get more at-bats.

Do not get me wrong. I’m not trying to make a case for the Mets to have kept him. I’m just pointing something out that I think should have people thinking: Part of this decision was based on the past instead of the present.

Burkhardt had more thoughts about the Castillo release stating that:

“…even with the moves made today you can still say he is the best secondbaseman they had. He can turn the best double play…Was it fair that everything fell on Castillo? No.”

However, even Burkhardt was hard pressed to admit that Castillo was a big part of the negativity. So much so that it had been documented Collins was forced to reprimand him for it. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of negativity. Life is hard enough without having to deal with negative people. Yet, if you want to be rid of the negativity, wouldn’t that require getting a rid of some of your fan base?

Alderson did admit Castillo made a strong effort. Apparently it was not strong enough. Or was it and the past was just too strong to ignore? I have to ask that if the fans had been, even the slightest way, willing to see Castillo on the field, would he had still been released?

Another factor that actually left me scratching my head was looking at where the organization is going “not just this year, but in the future”. I’m sorry. I did not realize there was a future for Castillo with the New York Mets beyond 2011. That is news to me. From what I understood, there was only the immediate future. No matter. Alderson felt it was in the best interest of the Mets and Castillo.

No matter what the reasons were, Luis Castillo is officially gone. He will still get paid. So celebrate all you want. You are still paying him $6 million.