Mets appear ready to yank Perez from starting rotation

[Benjamin Grimm]

Mets appear ready to yank Oliver Perez from starting rotation By Brian Costa/The Star-Ledger May 15, 2010, 8:00AM MIAMI -- Jerry Manuel wasn�t ready to say anything definitive, not so soon after Friday�s loss. But it seems all but certain that Oliver Perez will be bumped from the Mets� rotation after his latest debacle of an outing. �I�ll have to sit down with the people involved and make a decision,� Manuel said. �I won�t do anything until I talk to the player and discuss it.� That will probably happen Saturday. The only questions remaining are what the Mets will do with Perez and who will replace him in the rotation. In all likelihood, they�ll move Perez to the bullpen, since they can�t send him to the minors without his consent. Perez said after Friday�s game that he is fully healthy and not in any kind of pain, so a trip to the disabled list seems unlikely. But then, arm or shoulder �weakness� has a funny way of cropping up when a pitcher is getting clobbered the way Perez is. Hisanori Takahashi (2.74 ERA in 14 appearances) is the presumptive favorite to replace Perez in the rotation. The lefty was a starter in Japan, he was a candidate for the fifth spot in the rotation this spring and he has pitched well over multiple innings this season. Takahashi has shown good command, with only 10 walks, three of which were intentional. And he has a deep enough arsenal of pitches to be effective as a starter. The only argument against Takahashi is the valuable role he has played in the bullpen, which would be weakened considerably by removing him and inserting Perez. But that should be a secondary concern to the state of the rotation. Three pitchers at Triple-A Buffalo -- R.A. Dickey, Pat Misch and Dillon Gee -- could warrant some consideration. Dickey has the best numbers of the three (4-2, 2.23 ERA, 1.04 WHIP). But Takahashi seems like the obvious choice.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

I'm all for removing Prez from the rotation. Moving him to the bullpen really doesn't seem like a good idea to me. He really should be shipped out to Buffalo where he can't hurt the Mets anymore and hopefully he can regain some form so he can be useful to the Mets in the future. Unfortunately, Perez would need to agree to a demotion for such a move to take place. If he truly wants to try to help both himself and his team, he should agree to a stint with the Bisons. He needs to improve his arm strength and improve his control if he is to become a contributor to the Mets going forward. He needs to work on those things somewhere other than in New York.

[metirish]

I can't think of a worse candidate for the bullpen...Buffalo for you Ollie.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

If someone sees fit to claim him when they DFA him, hell, go right ahead and have some, hypothetical stranger. No, we're not finishing that.

Shuffle off, son. And tell Misch to get his butt up here-- he's got big, Japanese shoes to fill.

[Frayed Knot]

"In all likelihood, they�ll move Perez to the bullpen, since they can�t send him to the minors without his consent."

Finally someone (presumably with knowledge on the subject) says something about this. I've been hearing over and over again that they should use the minor league option without it ever being discussed whether such an option was even in their control.

[ashie62]

Ya gotta keep Takahashi in the Pen.

Ron Darling's take was to keep Mr. T in the pen. Give Dillon Gee a full year in the minors and go with Pat Misch and consider Dickey. The thought on Dickey is that as a knuckleballer he could be an innings eater.

[Guest Edgy DC]

If you have a 12-man staff, and you can't afford to switch your mopup man with an ineffective starter, you're not running things right.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

And if he's one of the five or six best you've got, and he can start, then by all means let him start. If I thought Frankie were capable of being and willing to be an effective starter, I'd argue for slotting him in there, too (especially over the very limited way in which he's being used now).

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Unless he's spreading the Miracle-Gro on Piggie's tomatoes Perez has no use in the bullpen. If he doesn't give permission to go down, DFA his sorry ass (or is that D his sorry ass FA?) and release him.

Everybody makes mistakes. Admitting them, cutting your losses and moving on is a good way to deal with mistakes, even a whopper like this one.

[Benjamin Grimm]

What happens if Perez refuses demotion? Does he just stay on the big league roster? Or does he become a free agent? Buffalo is clearly the place for him. As said above, there's really no role for him in the pen. I understand that the Mets would be reluctant to release him with so much money still owed, but I don't think he'll be able to get his act together as a mop-up guy. It would be in Perez's own best interest to join the Buffalo rotation and, possibly, work his way back to the big leagues.

[smg58]

I guess Plan A is to send him down and see if he can work through this, if he's willing. Obviously nobody would claim him -- that would mean taking on his contract. He has the right to refuse a demotion, though, and if it came to that we might as well give him a shot as a LOOGY. Lefties are hitting .182 against him this year and only hit .200 against him last year, so why not? The alternative would be releasing him and guaranteeing zero return for the rest of our investment in him, which we could still do in a few weeks if the pen and Ollie don't mix.

As for the rotation spot, I don't think we have a better alternative than Takahasi. Our pen is actually very deep -- keep in mind that Igarashi will be back soon and Parnell and Calero are still in AAA -- so it's not like he's irreplaceable in his current role.

[MFS62]

The fact that they are saying they can't send him down without his consent means to me that he had an option left, but also has enough major league time so he'd have to agree to it.
There's no DFA involved.
Also, if they must DFA him (because he refused to shuffle) and someone claims him, they only have to pay him the pro-rated portion of the major league minimum salary and the Mets would have to pay the rest. (About $20-21 million remaining on his contract through 2011.)

As an alternative way to help him, IIRC there used to be this wild lefthander with great stuff who came up with Brooklyn.
How about Wilpon asking Sandy Koufax to join the team as a personal pitching guru for Perez?
They did it this spring, although they said they did it for him to work with many pitchers, not specifically Perez.
As they used to say in Brooklyn, "it couldn't hoit".

Later

[Guest OlerudOwned]

Wasn't Trachsel hanging around the clubhouse with the team before one of the games last week? Maybe he can convince Ollie to accept a minor league assignment.

[MFS62]

OlerudOwned wrote: Wasn't Trachsel hanging around the clubhouse with the team before one of the games last week? Maybe he can convince Ollie to accept a minor league assignment.

Great idea. He could tell Ollie how much it helped him. (And it certainly did.)

Later

[ashie62]

It was suggested by Darling that Ollie could benefit by reinventing himself in the minors with young pitching coach Ricky Bones

[metirish]

Ollie to the bullpen is official.....when asked to comment he said that Takahashi is pitching betteer than him......Mets have not named anyone to replace him.

Via Lennon on twitter

[metirish]

Via Lennon,

Ollie will not accept demotion to the minors if asked, Mets have not asked.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Cut him. Release him. Tell Chris Carter that he can start if Perez 'disappears.' Get him the fuck out of our sight.

Perez, quoting MetsBlog, "has no interest in going to Triple-A to work out his problems." Fuck you, you waste of protoplasm. The Mets are giving you 12 million dollars a year. If they tell you to change the fucking flags around the roof of the stadium you should fucking do it, because you have proven beyond any doubt that being a major league pitcher is outside of your scope of ability.

I know that, contractually, he doesn't have to go to the minors. Baseball contracts are so one-sided that a player can do anything up to and including taking a shit on a fan's head and still get paid, but every once in a while it would be heartening to see a guy do what is right for the team.

Rickey Henderson, a lock Hall of Famer, went to the minor leagues to prove he could still play. This jerkoff "has no interest" in doing it? Fuck him. Stuff him in a trunk and float him out to sea. Give him the spot after Buscemi in the wood chipper.

With this one act of selfishness and zero self-awareness Oliver Perez has sprinted past Tom Herr and Tony Fernandez as my most hated Met ever. Go away, Oliver Perez. Take your money and never darken my mound again.

[metirish]

What Swanie said.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Wood chippers? Jeez, lighten up, fellas.

[Guest Kong76]

Tough crowd.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yeah, come on.

[Gwreck]

Omar and Jerry need to take him into an office and advise him that his options are:

1. Go to the minors, figure out how to pitch and one day earn your way back to the starting rotation here; or

2. Go hire a financial advisor to figure out how to save that remaining $20 million, because you're going to the bullpen, will pitch only in emergent circumstances and will see so little action that your career as a major league pitcher will effectively be over.

[Chad ochoseis]

I'd like to think that Scott Boras is having that conversation with Ollie sometime soon, even if Omar and Jerry aren't.

[Guest Edgy DC]

smg58 wrote: As for the rotation spot, I don't think we have a better alternative than Takahasi. Our pen is actually very deep -- keep in mind that Igarashi will be back soon and Parnell and Calero are still in AAA -- so it's not like he's irreplaceable in his current role.

Nor is it true that his current role is such a crucial one. In fact, if Takahashi improves on Perez's performance, the demand on the bullpen (particularly on the back end, where Tak was serving) goes down.

I certainly don't think it's true that a bullpen assignment necessarily means the effective end of his career.

[Gwreck]

Edgy DC wrote: I certainly don't think it's true that a bullpen assignment necessarily means the effective end of his career.

Nobody suggested that.

My idea was that if Oliver ties the Mets' hands, they should respond by relegating him to the darkest corner of the bullpen and using him so infrequently that he becomes marginalized as a player.

[Guest Edgy DC]

You're not suggesting that a bullpen assignment necessarily means the end of his career, but rather that it should be used to effect that? Is that the distinction?

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Edgy -"I certainly don't think it's true that a bullpen assignment necessarily means the effective end of his career."

I don't think his career is over by any means, but his effectiveness seems to have abandoned him long ago.

At least for me, for a struggling player such as Perez to say he "has no interest in accepting a minor league assignment" is tantamount to saying "I am not willing to do whatever it takes to work out my problems in hopes of improving my performance". I'm sorry, but that is how I view such an attitude and it is unacceptable and selfish in my opinion.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, we're not really there at this time.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Maybe they'll soon be having a similar conversation with John Maine?