Willie-Castro Rift?

By Matt Himelfarb
Posted Sunday, June 8, 2008

The "Fire Willie" chants have been dormant for quite awhile now. Turns out that when he took shots at the Wilpon's multi billion dollar baby SNY for perpetuating the claim that he played the race card when asked whether being African American had any effect on his job status, it was more reflective of a man given an unlimited free reign due to his employer's personal love affair with him than that of a disgruntled former employee having already been handed a pink slip.

So I am perfectly accepting if the fact that I will now be accused of being a mass conspiracy theorist. That any criticism of Willie makes me likely to have a low I.Q. according to Mark Healey, and that my premise might seem like somewhat of a stretch to say the least.

I do not care- Ramon Castro's late arrival and subsequent removal from the lineup yesterday was just another paradox to be added to the unfortunate legend of Willie Randolph.

Look, I know it is easy to sit back and assume that Willie is showing some good ol' tough love here, and that Castro safely secured his removal from the lineup by showing up to the ballpark late. Nothing more, nothing less, no hidden agenda here.

But let's look at it from a different angle. As Gary Cohen pointed out in the telecast of today's game, Castro "knew" he would be starting today, given the fact that the Mets were playing a day game after night game and assuming the Metropolitans have same semblance of order and consistency when it comes to setting the starting lineup. Now, I do not really doubt the fact that Castro was possibly a bonehead who forgot to set his alarm, however, arcane that might seem. But would it be too much of a stretch to suggest that Castro is disenchanted with Willie and simply has 'given up' on the decider in this case?

Of course, this is all just pure speculation on my part. But let's face it; as far as I know, Castro is not Lastings Milledge. He is far from a clubhouse cancer and does not have a track record of showing up late. And the truth is this: Ramon Castro has been unfairly denied playing time for over a year now, to the point where it is hard for him to ignore himself.

Even when Paul Lo Duca continued to hit at a largely unacceptable rate last year even for a regular catcher and Castro's OPS. loomed around .900, Willie stuck with the status quo. It was not a question of defense, as I wrote back in September of last year. It was not a question of leadership, grittiness, and Jeterness, which was apparently so manifest last year that the Mets did not give a passing though to resigning Lo Duca this year. It took until approximately game number 161 before the stakes were high enough that Willie decided to insert Castro into the starting lineup for good- or so we thought. The Mets than forked out $15 million for a guy named Yorvit Torrealba, an irrational move on so many fronts that I reached to the Mets Geek diaries to vent out my thoughts.

But the insanity did not end there. Make no mistake, he has gotten close to his fair share of playing time since returning from the DL in early May, but Schneider still receives non-sensible starts against southpaws, and it is only a matter of time before fans starting calling for Castro to catch fifty percent of the ballgames if not more as Schneider has been the Francisco Pena of 2006 at the major league level thus far, struggling mightily both offensively and defensively.

And it may not just help matters that Castro was ultimately benched and fined for his late arrival today; anyone that saw Castro in the dugout today knows he was not too pleased. After all, when the Mets first signed Pedro Martinez and were asked questions about his eccentric yet sometimes unpredictable attitude, particularly his propensity for showing up late to the ballpark, the attitude kind of was, 'Well, if he goes in and throws seven shutout innings, we do not care if he shows up when he hand the lineup card to the home plate umpire.'

Now, I know Pedro is the quasi President of the Dominican Republic and that he single handedly changed the identity of the franchise back in 2005, but how is someone like Castro, who is basically fallen short of ever receiving a full-time job since being drafted in the first round back in 1994, supposed to see that? What ever happened to the "it takes twenty-five guys to win a championship" cliché?

I know what you are asking- Am I inside the clubhouse? No, but I do not think it is any more naive to suggest that there is any animus or disconnect between Willie and some of his "guys" than to proclaim that the Mets are a bunch of passionate less, unscrupulous, money driven, non-Paul lo Duca’s? It certainly would not be a shock personally. Hey perception is everything, so maybe I am missing something here, but I am more inclined to attribute the Mets struggles this year to the former rather than the latter.

 

Matt is a disgruntled, statistically- and politically-obsessed teenager and appreciates all words of encouragement at: matthimelfarb@gmail.com. You can also check out his blog: matthimelfarb.wordpress.com.