I logged on today to find an article by a fellow blogger about how the Mets should focus on Brandon Phillips for 2010. I immediately slipped into a state of shock, which lead to an unconscious state, and now here I am.
Following 2008, everybody was down on Luis Castillo. Castillo had his worst offensive season in his career in 2008 following the signing of a long-term deal in 2007. After his unbelievably bad 2008, Castillo went to work in the off-season, and he lost weight and he came back to Spring Training with something to prove. Castillo in 2009 had a season that could be compared to the 1999 Luis Castillo. For some reason, it’s not good enough for Mets fans though?
Somehow our fan base still wants to go after Orlando Hudson, which somehow makes up for not signing him prior to the 2009 season? Just in case you missed it, Castillo hit for a better average and was on base more than Hudson in 2009, he also stole more bases than Hudson. However, Castillo dropped a pop-up, so he has to go?
We don’t NEED a 2B. Sure, it’s a nice position to upgrade, but there are far more important things to do this off-season than to replace a 2B that you just don’t like. The only reason to want to get rid of Castillo is you either don’t like him or his contract length. The problem is, anybody you go after is probably going to have the same type of contract. I guess the fact Castillo was 4th in the NL among 2B’s in Batting Average, and 2nd in OBP and 3rd in SB’s means nothing though?
People, we want performance do we not? The names I keep hearing are Orlando Hudson and Brandon Phillips. (I find it strange nobody talks about Felipe Lopez.)
Brandon Phillips: 7th in Average, 8th in OBP
Orlando Hudson: 5th in Average, 6th in OBP
If you want to tell me defense is the reason, that’s fine. Castillo made 2 more errors than Phillips and 3 more than Hudson. However, if that’s your reason, remember that when Phillips and Hudson can’t get on base and strike out, while Castillo is getting on base.
The Mets need to focus on OF, SP, 1B, C, RP. Isn’t that enough to worry about? Look, I’m all for upgrading 2B with a younger guy if we can. However, I’m not down for getting a guy like Phillips who was called out for his poor work ethic and attitude this season, or a guy like Orlando Hudson who wasn’t even good enough to start in the post-season over RONNIE BELLIARD!!! Come on!
You think Joe Torre is an idiot? Let me put it more clearly to the Orlando Hudson fans. When the Dodgers needed the best lineup possible to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, (who are our division rival by the way) Joe Torre felt he had a better chance to win if he played Ronnie Belliard at 2B, a guy who had been on the Dodgers for just 24 games, not an entire season like Hudson. Doesn’t that tell you something about Hudson? If that doesn’t, maybe the fact Hudson fell asleep at the plate in September and October does?
As for Phillips, some Mets fans have an unhealthy obsession with power. In regards to Phillips, some have this goofy claim that Phillips is a power hitter. When did 4 years of 17-30-21-20 while playing in a launching pad of a home stadium prove you are a power hitter? So if he averages 20 homeruns per season while playing in a Top 5 ballpark for homerun hitters, what’s he going to do in Citi Field? He’ll give you a few more homeruns than Castillo, but he’ll strike out almost twice as much, thus getting on base less.
The Mets don’t need a guy with a poor attitude, isn’t that why so many people are down on the Mets in the past few years? The Mets need players who shut up, and show up.
I’ve got an idea, let’s trade Castillo to the Cubs for Milton Bradley. Then, let’s trade a bag of balls for Brandon Phillips and let’s see if we can have a flashback to the days of Bobby Bonilla and Vince Coleman. If we’re going to acquire everybody else’s problems, let’s have a little fun.
The fact some Mets fans are targeting 2B as a necessary upgrade for 2010 is ridiculous. You can’t overhaul an entire team, it’s not going to work. Castillo was one of the few guys who actually went out there almost every day for the Mets and played his heart out, and for that we want to run him out of town? I’m not a fan of his contract, I’m not a fan of him dropping the ball against the Yankees, but I’m a fan of performance. He did his job in 2009, give him a break.
I don’t care if it’s the unpopular thing to say. Upgrading 2B should be near the bottom of the Mets “to do list.” If you try to tell me you’d rather have Phillips or Hudson instead of a solid LF, 1B, C, or SP then you just hate Luis Castillo and there’s nothing I can do about that. If you tell me Luis Castillo has to go in order to upgrade one of our real needs, that’s fine. I’m all for selling a player when his value is high.
However, if you tell me he needs to go in order to acquire Hudson or Phillips, well that doesn’t work for me.
*Mets Merized Online Needs Your Help*
I totaly agree. Mets fan are on a man hunt. Looking for a scape goat. And since this guy was one of the the few EVERYDAY players they got to see his FEW screw ups. I think second base is for now fine. Focus on pitching
.387 OBP in the lineup is not a bad thing.
Upgrading is not something that you prioritize, it’s something that good teams do whenever the opportunity presents itself. Only bad GM’s like Omar Minaya head into each off season with a to-do list and then fold his arms like his job was done afterward. Bad GM’s are reactive and can only identify needs by addressing holes after the fact. Proactive GM’s know that maintaining a championship team is a never ending job and one does not ever stop trying to upgrade the team. I totally disagree with your premise. It’s the same backward type of thinking that only an Omar lover would appreciate.
Hey fair enough but while you’re worrying about upgrading from a .300 hitting second basemen that gets on base and doesn’t strike out, you’ll see a guy like Cory Sullivan in LF on opening day because “oops we put all of our attention and money into 2b”
K, I UNDERSTAND YOUR INTENT; BUT COULD U SUPPLY ME WITH AN EXAMPLE? TRY TO FIND ONE WITH A TEAM SANS AAA PROSPECTS. LIKE THE ONE OMAR INHERITED WITH THE ONLY ACTUAL PROSPECT IN THE ENTIRE FARM WAS MILLEDGE. NOTE I SAY PROSPECT NOT SUSPECT. THANKS, I’LL AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE, IT’S NICE TO BE THE YANKS WITH 2-3 DEEP MILLIONAIRES ON CALL WHILE SPENDING A LOW BUDGET PAYROLL IN LUXURY TAXES (LIKELY 40M+ IN ‘09). EVERYONE SHOULD UNDERSTAND BY NOW, REACTIONARY ISN’T BAD WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY DO NOTHINGS OUT THERE IN PIT,CINCY,KC. WASN’T IT ONLY THE 80’s WHEN THOSE TEAMS WERE ALL CONTENDERS?
THIS ISN’T FANTASY BASEBALL IT’S REALITY BASEBALL & DEALING AS BEST U CAN WITH ‘OFF’ YEARS IS A WAY OF LIFE. IF IT WASN’T FOR THE DEVASTATION OF D/L POPULATION EXPLOSION, THE METS COULD’VE HANDLED PLANS GONE AWRY FOR EXAMPLE:
PEREZ STAYS HEALTHY; BUT HAS HIS MISERABLE YR: PLUG IN LHP NIESE
PELFREY STRUGGLES?:RHP NIEVE
CASTILLO DOESN’T IMPROVE?:CORA
MY POINT IS THIS. THE OPTIONS SHOULD’VE BEEN THERE NO ONE CAN PREPARE FOR OVER 1,OOO MAN PLAYING DAYS LOST TO INJURY.
IT WAS SO BIG, MOST CAN’T GET THEIR HEADS AROUND IT TO FULLY APPRECIATE WHAT COULD’VE/SHOULD’VE BEEN.
NO, WE DON’T HAVE THE TOP MINOR LEAGUE TALENT PHILLY & ATL HAVE HOARDED; BUT THEY DON’T DEAL WITH RABID FANS & IN-CITY PRESSURE COMPARISONS TO AN UBER-SPENDING RIVAL.
OUR DISGUSTINGLY NEGATIVE PRESS COVERAGE IS LAUGHED AT BY RIVAL TEAMS!
THEY CALL IT REDICULOUS & THEY DON’;T EVEN LISTEN TO SNY’S YANKEE FANS SHINES,MALOUSIS,TIERNEY,et al, BELITTLING THE SUPPOSED FLAGSHIP TEAM.
Oh please! This is the same guy who tries to bunt for a sacrifice in the 1st inning! Who takes too many obvious strikes and jeopardizes his at bats, for what?, so he could swing at a pitch in the dirt? He was slow in the field and his baseball IQ is shown to be lacking in some areas. Yes a quicker Hudson is what i want or a stronger Phillips instead of Castillo. These two have shown that they will go down swinging, how many mets have consistently taken called third strikes? As to the Dodgers, Hudson hurt his wrist twice last season, he was diminished and Belliard was the better choice for that time; it wasn’t a talent difference.
Wait a minute. Luis Castillo saw on average the 9th most pitches per plate appearance in the entire major leagues and had the second most sac hits in the entire league.
So explain to me how he jeopardizes at bats when he sees more pitches than almost anybody, and was Top 30 in on base percentage in the entire league? Do you realize of the 9 players that see more pitches per at bat, only Youkilis, Nick Johnson (who I have written should be our 1B), Adam Dunn, and Todd Helton had a better OBP in 2009? Care to guess which of those 5 players struck out the least? That’s right. The guy you said wastes or jeopardizes at bats.
You’re praising guys for striking out so long as they swing? Are you out of your mind? So Hudson struck out 41 more times than Castillo last year but because maybe he swing at strike 3 that makes him more attractive?
Look at it from this perspective: Of all the time he looked at all those pitches, what percentage of that did he actually have a productive at-bat? Or drive in a run from second base? Remember the mets led the league in “empty calories”, RISP avg. but, were among the worst teams in RBI or Runs scored. How many time did you scream at the TV when Luis looked at a pitch right down the middle when he was ahead in the count 3-1, 2-1 and next thing you see it’s 3-2 and his at-bat became wasted? Yes I want a guy to be aggressive and drive in those runs. Of all the guys you mentioned, how many of them had more productive AB’s than Castillo? and they all missed more time then luis.
How about we look at it from this perspective. If you hate Castillo, just say that. Don’t try and feed me numbers and theories without having evidence.
“Look at it from this perspective: Of all the time he looked at all those pitches, what percentage of that did he actually have a productive at-bat? Or drive in a run from second base? Remember the mets led the league in “empty calories”, RISP avg. but, were among the worst teams in RBI or Runs scored.”
— Castillo hit .325 with runners in Scoring position. He got on base .397 percent of the time with runners in scoring position. Brandon Phillips hit .291, got on base .333 percent of the time and Hudson hit .264 and .394 with runners in scoring position. So where on earth can you say Castillo isn’t having productive at bats? He takes more pitches, he gets on base more, he gets more base hits with RISP and he K’s less.
Don’t forget Castillo was one of the only contributors to an injured lineup. He did that with almost no talent around him. How can you say he wasted at bats or wasn’t productive.
As for yelling at the TV when Castillo takes a pitch on a 3-1 count (which he hit below .200) to make a count 3-2 (which he hit .329) no I don’t mind that. BTW Hudson hit .235 with a 3-2 count and Phillips hit .195 with a 3-2 count. So who’s at bats are wasted at 3-2?
You obviously don’t watch Phillips or Hudson play so you have the luxury of just being frustrated with Castillo. You don’t have 2009 stats to back up your frustrations because if you were HONEST, you’d say he had as good of a year as you could ask from him, especially under the circumstances of our team’s health.
Stats are just numbers assigned to a category already preordained, i.e 3-10=300 or 1-3=333 wow,I could quote Baseball Reference too but, what did your eyes see? why were you reading while the game was on? Think of all the action that you missed! So Castillo is a better hitter than D. Wright? because he struck out less? And I won’t qualify my reason as you did by saying he did what he could because of the circumstances, he was not the least bit productive when he needed to be. Stats, I don’t need stats to tell me that, i saw it with my own eyes. Who would any real baseball fans want at the plate needing a game winning hit? No one and I guarantee this, no one would pick Castillo
Sorry Jessep but Sixxis has outpointed you on this one.
Castillo can get hits with runners at 2nd and still not get the RBI.
I’ll take Phillips and his HR and RBI over Castillo any day.
Stats are just numbers assigned to a category already preordained, i.e 3-10=300 or 1-3=333 wow,I could quote Baseball Reference too but, what did your eyes see?
— What do your eyes see? My eyes saw Dusty Baker in July say Brandon Phillips has a poor attitude and work ethic. I love baseball fans who demean stats. Yet every organization in the league has statistical analysts now working for them. Your eyes are seeing what you want to see. You’re seeing a guy you hate and not giving him credit for a very good season.
Castillo is a #2 or #8 hitter, something every NL team needs. Phillips is not a #2 or #8 hitter, so comparing their “production” is silly. If Reyes was on instead of every other leadoff hitter we had in 2009, would Castillo have brought in more runs? It’s impossible for you to say no.
Sometimes you have to be happy with what you have. Are you trying to tell me that you’d rather have Daniel Murphy at 1B, Fernando Tatis in LF, Omir Santos at C, and question marks at SP and RP just to have Brandon Phillips over Castillo? Are you also trying to tell me that if the Mets focus on those issues and keep castillo that they can’t win?
In four years, Phillips has averaged .265 with a .312 OBP, 21HR and 84 RBI. That’s not exciting to me. We don’t need middle of the lineup guys if they focus on LF/1B. We need guys GETTING ON BASE! Getting on base 31% of the time no matter how much you hate stats is not better than getting on base 38% of the time, especially in the #2 slot when your job is to allow Reyes the time to steal second base and to get ON BASE FOR WRIGHT/BELTRAN.
That’s his job. Daniel Murphy hit .266 and had an OBP of .313 in 2009, those 2 #s sound familar? Here’s the difference. He’s 5 years younger than Phillips and doesn’t have a poor attitude!
And Danny, you can take Phillips HR and RBI. But nobody has answered me what Phillips would do for power in Citi Field since he’d be out of GAB in Cincy.
Phillips last year hit 20HR and drove in 98. You turn some of those homeruns into pop flys, and you have yourself a 10-15 HR guy driving in 80 something RBI. You’re going to put that guy in the middle of your lineup?
So where does he fit into your projected Mets lineup? He certainly isn’t hitting 2nd (which leaves you needing a 2 hitter) and he certainly isn’t hitting 3-4-5 because he doesn’t get on base, hit for average or have enough power to carry Citi Field.
So you’re telling me you’d rather have a poor attitude 6-7 hitter over a guy who worked his ass off last year to prove every Mets fan wrong and a proven OBP guy for Reyes to steal and our 3 hitter to drive in runs.
BTW another statistical example
OPS+ (Adjusted Park_ Brandon Phillips in 2009 was +102, Castillo was +98… but you’re right stats are stupid and that doesn’t show you any inclination of what Phillips would do at Citi Field after leaving the launching pad
I agree with K Maxx’s general premise about how a GM should go about his (or her) business, but I also agree that 2B doesn’t stand out as a must overhaul position on this current team. If Omar CAN do it, great. But Hudson or Phillips don’t seem like the players to accomplish that overhaul with. Hudson’s speed/defense game is declining through age/injury as Castillo’s has. Phillips I agree doesn’t translate well to Citi.
I like the idea of selling high on Castillo, something that simply wasn’t possible 1 year ago. The idea of Hudson or Phillips as replacements, not so much. I far prefer Placido Polanco on a short contract. His defense will help while the organization keeps its eyes and ears open for better long term solutions than Hudson, Phillips or for that matter, Castillo.
I frankly had no problem with Castillo. The real problem was the fact that Jose wasnt there. Typically, you want to see Jose get on base, steal and/or have Castillo get a hit and leg it out to first. Best case, we get a run or players on 1st and 3rd and its only the 3rd batter. This is how we were able to do so well in 07 before the spectacular collapse.
I think you misunderstood the point of my article. I wasn’t suggesting that second base should be prioritized over left field or the pitching staff.
All I was saying was that with all the talk surrounding Omar Minaya potentially trading Luis Castillo, I would rather see the team go after Brandon Phillips than Orlando Hudson.
haha!
Hoops: I didn’t mean YOU were saying 2B should be a priority… I was saying that reading your article mentioning Phillips and Hudson drove me over the edge. Your article was an “if” no Castillo, but the masses are constantly talking about making 2B a priority.
I would rather see them get Lopez or Polanco than a poor attitude Phillips or Luis Castillo 2 yrs ago in Orlando Hudson
Hahahah oh ok that makes sense. I don’t know to be honest I’m torn on Castillo.
If he can replicate last year or at least come close to it then I would be more than happy with him at second. My biggest fear is that his body breaks down mid-way through next year, leaving us with no full-time second baseman and a unmovable contract.
The mets apparently are enamored of Chone Figgins. They like guys who never get a hit in the playoffs. I hear they like him for 2b or LF. Huh? They guy wants 10 mil!! So we are stuck with a 10 mil 2B or a LF who cannot hit a HR.
Sounds like it could be Hudson at 2b and Chuck Figgins in LF with maybe Castillo going to the Cubs and here is a new name……Kevin Millwood going to the mets. Daily news talks about mets going after Hudson and Figs, also Philadelphia Inquier is reporting that the phillies are going after Planco, Andrian Beltre and derosa for their 3b situation. Also according to Marty Noble, mets have a interest in Troy Glaus to compliement Murphy at 1b, if Glaus is healthy i think he could be a lot more then a compliement to Murphy.
“If Glaus is healthy..”
Every off-season some fan asks that question, and the answer is always the same. Save your money.
Jessep
Castillo is a singles hitter. It’s hard watching him bat despite the OBP. His production is so pathetic. And his defense is getting worse and worse.
I know Murphy’s OBP was low – but he’s going to do better this year. Bat him 2nd and Phillips 6th or 7th. Last year it was station to station and that killed our offense. We couldn’t put 3 hits together to score runs. I’d take 12 homers and 85 RBI from Phillips in a second over what Castillo can bring to the table.
Danny
What you’re doing there though is you’re totally negating your own belief.
Okay so you want our #2 hitter in Murphy who will get on base let’s just say 33% of the time. How does that improve production? Your #2’s job is not to get RBI. In the Mets case it’s to allow Reyes to steal second or get him to second if he can’t swipe and to set the table for 3-4-5. Typical NL ball.
You saying put Murphy @ the 2 hole doesn’t allow Wright-Beltran to drive in runs. If Reyes is out up first then what? Then you have a 33% chance at best of getting somebody on base for your run producers.
Every team needs people to get on base to increase run production. If everybody in your NL lineup is a HR or Bust type hitter you’re not going to score a lot of runs because the bases will be empty.
Unless you have a legit OBP for the 2 hole, you can’t sell me on Phillips being a more important player in the lineup. I’m sorry but it doesn’t fit Citi Field or the core of the Mets lineup.
Jessep
You’re making two assumptions that I don’t agree with.
Firstly – that Castillo can duplicate his OBP of .387 in ‘09.
Secondly – that Murphy won’t be an incredibly improved player this year
The Mets were all about station to station last year. It took 3 hits to score a run.
If Reyes gets on, Castillo is apt to bunt him over and that gives away an out.
Murphy at .330 OBP, hitting 40 doubles and 15 HR is so much bitter than Castillos .387 OBP , hitting 15 doubles and 125 singles.
I rest my case.