Perez, Castillo cuts come too late

Mets general manager Sandy Alderson did the right thing by cutting loose Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez. Ownership did the right thing by eating the $18 million the two players are owed.

They just did it six weeks too late.

Think of poor, huddled Mets fans, yearning to be free of the team's two most unpopular players. Did they really need their chances for spring training optimism extinguished by the presence of Castillo and Perez and this pointless exercise to see if either could help the team in 2011?

No, they didn't. There was no reason to bring Castillo or Perez to Port St. Lucie in mid-February except to have them return their company cell phones and pick up their last paychecks.

Spring training is a time for hope, even if there's no evidence your team is going to be good. What the Mets did by keeping Castillo and Perez until the last few days was rob the die-hards of the pleasure of deluding themselves.

Want to fantasize about Brad Emaus turning into a Rule 5 gem the way Dan Uggla did for the Marlins? Mets fans couldn't even dream about it without Castillo invading their subconscious.

At the time of his release Friday, Castillo had 28 exhibition at-bats, two more than Emaus. Why, exactly? Castillo outplayed Emaus and the Mets' other second-base candidates and still got cut, proof the Mets didn't make their evaluation based on his spring training performance.

Want to project whether Jenrry Mejia or Dillon Gee can contribute this season? Hard to do when Perez gets seven appearances and the youngsters get two each.

And it wasn't just fans wasting their time dealing with the Castillo/Perez conundrum.

Manager Terry Collins made a two-hour bus ride March 8 to watch Perez pitch in a split-squad game. Managers rarely go with the "B" team, but Collins was honoring a promise he made at the start of camp to give Perez a shot. No Perez in camp, no promise to keep.

Pitching coach Dan Warthen worked hard trying to get Perez comfortable as a lefthanded specialist. During a bullpen session, Warthen stood in the lefthanded batter's box without a bat or helmet and yelled out, "Chase Utley!" and "Ryan Howard!" as pitches whizzed by. Couldn't Warthen's energy and expertise have been put to better use somewhere else?

Alderson cited Perez's lack of velocity and command Monday. But the Mets knew that was the case last season and when Perez pitched in Mexico over the winter.

"We just got to the point where there was no reason to prolong it," Alderson said. He didn't say "prolong the agony," but he might as well have.

The Mets, for all the talk about their newer, smarter front office, put their fans in the position of having to root against their own players. Were there any fans who were hoping Castillo and Perez would make the team? All it did was add to the negativity surrounding the franchise.

"For a variety of reasons, it was important to have them in camp," Alderson said. "To start with, I didn't want to do anything rash or reflexive given what I had heard about the situation here. And so I think it was important to bring them to camp, and then once brought to camp, give them a legitimate opportunity."

Castillo told Newsday's Jim Baumbach on Friday that he didn't think he got a fair shot. Perez said he thought he did. Whatever. It's over.

It was Mets fans who didn't get a fair shot. To dream.