14
2011
Oliver Perez Has Warthen On His Side
An article by Craig Lerner
Who’s ready for another chapter in the Oliver Perez saga?
According to Andy Martino of the Daily News, the Mets are falling all over themselves over Ollie’s relief stint this weekend in which he pitched to one batter and retired him on seven pitches.
Pitching Coach Dan Warthen may now be the only thing standing between the enigmatic southpaw’s release or him earning a spot on the roster as the left-handed specialist to replace Pedro Feliciano.
In fact, you might say Perez and Warthen are now bosom buddies, or at least that’s what Perez seems to think while speaking to reporters about Warthen today. “When things are going bad, you find out who your real friends are,” Perez says.
Warthen sees it more like a hen clutching her little chicks to her bosom. “With Ollie, I feel like a father with his child,” Warthen says. “I love the energy he brings every day. I get mad as hell at him sometimes.”
The pitching coach may be the only person left in camp that wants to give Perez a shot and now he is lobbying for Perez believing that he may have fixed Ollie and transformed him into the next…uh? The next…um?
Well, heck I have no idea what Warthen is thinking, but as pitching coach his opinion is weighed very heavily as to who makes the bullpen and who doesn’t.
Warthen wants Perez to drop his arm on every pitch. “That gives him deception, and better command,” Warthen says. “I just want all my guys to succeed,” he says. “We need to give it one more shot to see if Ollie can do this. And personally, I like Ollie. Look at the way he was hopping around on the field on Sunday. He’s always going to be on the playground.”
Huh? What did he just say there? Will somebody please get Warthen a damn bunny rabbit for chrissake.
Can you even imagine Perez as a replacement for Pedro Feliciano? What did Pedro pitch last season, wasn’t it something like 90-something games? Feliciano must be reading this stuff about Ollie everyday and is just laughing his butt off.
About the Author: Craig Lerner
I'm a data analyst and researcher for a leading news agency who loves life and is hooked on the Mets. I love following the Amateur Draft and have a particular fondness for the Mets Minor Leagues who I follow each day. Give me a cold beer, a summer day, and a Mets game, and I'm good to go.
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” and now he is lobbying for Perez”
Do you mean lobbying to pitch well or lobbying for Mets to add him to pen?
If it is the latter can I ask if there is anything in particular that makes you say that?
Niether, lobbying for him to stay longer and keep pitching as the article said. I believe metsblog did as well. Which one are you lobbying for?
Ahh thx for replying. I could not tell after reading it that you meant more time.
To answer your question i’d say i am lobbying for Ollie to finally be released. I just want to get past this Ollie era.
I feel the same way. he’s become such a distraction and takes away from a lot of the postive things going on down there this spring.
I think if Ollie gets released, its not going to be till the last, or at the soonest, next to last batch of cuts made to the roster. They are going to try and squeeze at least some slither of talent from Ollie as if the were squeezing blood from a stone.
he really needs to pitch tomorrow again, trying to get some semblance of RP usage, especially a loogy that might have to pitch many days in a row.
Hell, pitch him Tuesday then wednesday, and see what he does.
unlike hideous little metsies like you mr jersey who root against their own guys and start fights amongst themselves in these dark and hideous days of metsie-dom, dan warthen is not a jerk like you. he roots for all his pitchers to do well.. the fact you had to ask shows how out of the realm of sanity you are. you should be more respectful of superior beings around here like bayonne and iz. Attention all little metsies…beware of this jersey guy. he hates other metsies. So sad, but what the heck…. SAVE THE WILPONS… nah it ain’t necessary, little metsies can remain the laughingstock without the help of the Wilpon family.
You’d think enlight of recent tradgic events, you’d have at least a little class to save your ignorant rants for a few days. This is a basebal sight with different opinions, if you can’t handle that in a mature way, then move on. Pathetic, really.
Get a life…….seriously
Yup you have me all figured out. No fooling you, no-sir-ree.
“According to Andy Martino of the Daily News, the Mets are falling all over themselves over Ollie’s relief stint this weekend in which he pitched to one batter and retired him on seven pitches.”
This is yet another reason why I can’t stand Martino – realy faling all over themselves?
Nothing like blowing things out of propotion.
Why shoot the messenger? Did you hear Collins and Warthen yesterday? They were falling all over themselves. Even reading the quotes can show you that.
The plan has always been to find a way to make Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez succeed. Niether of them were ever at risk to get cut, not on your life. WithCatillo, the plan was to make the competition so inferior to him that it would look like he beat them out for the second base job. In Oliver Perez case it was to dilute his role to something that even he couldn’t fail at. So yesterday they made him face one batter, a career .270 hitter in the minors named Daniel Delscaso. After the game Collins said Perez may have turned a corner with his new arm slot. Warthen raved as well, and now they are all happy.
You see if they cut them it’s not just the 18 million they have to pay, they dont want to pay the two extra players on the 25 man roster to replace them either, so it’s actually more than the $18MM alone.
They knew this all along. This is playing out exactly as they had planned.
i don’t know if you can answer this but here goes.
I recently read somewhere that if a team releases a player that is under contract and the player then goes to play for another team the other team is responsible for the minimum salary portion of said player’s contract which i believe is about 400K.
Does that sound right to you?
With veterans like Ollie, if he is released here’s how it works.
If the new team signs him for 4 million a season, the Mets pay the difference or 8 million.
I see so let me ask you this Nester. Why would a team agree to pay $4M? Wouldn’t they just then pay the minimum then and have the Mets pay the difference?
I mean as far as Ollie is concerned nothing changes right?
He would still get paid the same regardless or am I missing something?
Yes that will most likely happen, but I wanted you to understand the rule. If it was player like lets say that more than a few teams wanted, they would compete for him like any other free agent with teams outbidding each other.
Thanks Nester in closing then would you agree with the following based on what we discussed?
If the Mets wind up releasing Ollie and he ends up going say to the Nationals. The Nationals would most likely pay the minimum salary portion of the $12M owed to Ollie which is around 400K and the Mets the difference.
Then if the Mets replace Ollie with say Gee. The Mets would pay Gee the Min which is again around 400K and since the Nationals are paying Ollie the minimum 400K portion and not the Mets. The Mets are in the end simply paying Gee the 400K they would have paid Ollie to begin with.
Does that sound about right?
Spot on.
yes NJ,in his case, no one would pay more than the mets owe him, so he will get the 400kish minimum from the new team.
which coincidentally, will nicely offset the minimum wage amount they will pay to either guys replacement. So literally no $ cost to releasing these stiffs.
Oh, in theory, there could be a bidding war, and he could end up getting more than 12mill from some team. But somehow, I don’t see this happening!
thx Stick your reply then answers what i just finished asking Nester up above.
I bring it up cause i saw somewhere someone say that the Mets did not want to pay the extra money it would cost to replace Ollie if he was released.
I mean if replaced with a minor leaguer we r talkin about 400K to begin with but i just wanted to know if in fact it is not even 400K so long as Ollie signs with another team and the Mets replace him for someone making the minimum.
as long as it is just a MiL guy,then the money is a wash.
the argument does become valid when fans start calling for them to eat a large contract, then turn around and sign another big money player to replace him!
I just keep hoping this is all part of the blowing smoke campaign, trying to get some team desperate enough to trade for him.
And is Warthen (who I still think should have been purged with the rest of them) really willing to bet his career on having “fixed” ollie? the same guy he pretty much punted on last year?
I will be really pissed if they lose any potentially viable RP to waivers to keep Ollie.
one outing? He pitched to a scrub LH hitter, and damned near walked him. That is wonderful? would they have a group orgasm if he hit 90 and K’d a guy?
I really hope its what you said, blowing smoke. At this point if any team even inquired about Ollie the Mets would take ANYTHING and probably offer to play $6-$7 million just to get him off their hands. But for that to happen we would first have to see pigs fly and peace in the Middle East.
And I too would be EXTREMELY pissed if Ollie takes up a roster spot again when someone young and flat out a better pitcher than Ollie right now is let in the rain.
[OFF TOPIC]
“There are rumblings around baseball that Terry Collins is firmly in the not-Luis Castillo camp for second base, but there’s still a chance he gets Castillo on his roster at second base anyway because Collins has bosses too. ”
http://proxy.espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/16807/castillo-or-not-castillo
Here is a quote from Collins regarding the 2b situation.
Terry Collins when asked if he is frustrated with the lack of progress with some of the other players other than Luis Castillo on the 2b situation:
“I’m not frustrated by it boomer. I was hoping that somebody would jump up and really just grab the job. Luis has played very well lately I mean really really well the last four games he’s been out there. Dan Murphy is actually swinging the bat very very good.
What we need to see certainly out of Murph is some action around the bag. We have not seen that yet. I’m not sure how it’s going to go when it does happen. I don’t want him to get hurt because that is what happened last year to him when he was in Buffalo that somebody slid in and re-injured the knee.
You know Brad Emaus and Justin Turner we think they probably gonna hit something we just haven’t been able to come up with the guy that we think is going to be able to go out there 140 times.”
Here is another quote from the interview that can be heard at the 13 minute mark of interview.
“If we catch the baseball cause we aren’t going to strike a lot of guys out. But if we catch the baseball.There is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to compete”
- Terry Collins
Sorry I just realized i never said where the interview is from.
It is the wfan interview he did with boomer & Carton. You can hear it here if you like.
http://realdirtymets.com/2011/03/14/audio-collins-talks-about-santana-ollie-and-beltran-oh-my/
Luis Castillo has no mother hen. Espn says Collins doesnt want him to win the 2nd base job. Heres why. Collins likes Murphy and the asst GM likes Emaus. If Castillo wins the 2nd base job, Emaus and Murph cant be on the bench. Hu is needed for Reyes. Murphy would have to go to AAA. So Luis has to go.
Well I don’t know why 2B should be such a problem.
It’s only difficult if you hate Castillo!
He leads all candidates in hitting
Castillo .318 .400 .318
Emaus has shown to be a typical example of selecting based on OBP.
.304 OBP but hitting .200
As much as many would not like to admit it the truth is Castillo has literally won the job in deed but not in decision.
Most likely because Collins and Alderson (and yes you fans too!) all decided before a pitch was thrown and an at bat was made WHO it was you wanted to win the job and now that they haven’t and Castillo has it is a problem for everyone!
Well I say remember all those posts about taking the best players to the regular season?
If you are true to your word then you should be wanting them to take castillo!
I say give him the job and when the trade deadline comes around agree to pay most of his salary and throw him into a trade package that nets us some starting pitching!
I am at a loss for words …………..
Did anyone hear Dan W on the Francessca show today? I didn’t hear him falling all over him at all, and when asked it was MF asked does he have a GOOD chance, he said “he has a chance”………….they aren’t making cuts until aroung the 21st or so and hopes everything is set by the 24th.
In other words – relax already people………