If Mets ownership did what people seem to think they want–say nothing–the media would be hounding them night and day. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING? WHY WON’T YOU ISSUE A STATEMENT? WHY AM I SHOUTING? People would presume their guilt, even more so than they do now, I think. Because the family’s reputation is being attacked. How on earth could they not respond to this in some way? Of all people, Olney–a former reporter on the Mets’ and Yankees’ beat–should know this.

As for the charge raised by Lennon and others that the Mets are timing announcements like Castillo’s release and the now-officially-official release of Oliver Perez strategically for PR purposes, to that I’d say: Who cares? There isn’t a business in the world that doesn’t hold off on releasing news or making decisions official for PR reasons. At least not ones that want to stay in business. Why should the Mets be any different?

– Matthew Callan, Amazin’ Avenue.

I have started and not finished about five different posts explaining, essentially, why I do not often and will not often weigh in on the Wilpons’ financial saga on this site. Callan gets at a lot of the reasons here: Essentially, the Wilpons have backed into a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario, and it has become difficult to see through the posturing from both sides in the pending lawsuit (now lawsuits) to ween out reality.

I’ll add that I have no inclination or particular aptitude for business. If I did, I’d probably be a businessman and perhaps making a lot more money right now. I like baseball and writing, among other things. I have a pretty awesome job that involves writing about baseball. This stuff, though it involves baseball because it is inextricably linked to the Mets, is not baseball.

Also, I am not an expert in business or law or anything besides sandwiches, really. And it strikes me that every single person involved at the level where stuff is actually happening — the lawyers, the trustees, the Wilpons, etc. — is both better informed and better qualified than I am to process the various details of this case. Presumably there are career financial lawyers working around the clock on it.

I’m not sure I trust the media outlets covering the story to present the full breadth of information in any accessible way, at least partly because — as I’ve said before — what little I do understand about it suggests that most of the articles published on the subject, especially in sports sections, entirely fail to grasp or even attempt to portray the nuance involved. Hell, I dedicate a good deal of space on this site to doubting and criticizing sports columns in newspapers. I’m not about to put much faith in the same columnists when they take on a much more complicated subject.

I will continue to occasionally link off to takes I find interesting and to news when something meaningful actually happens. But if you’re looking for much more, I’d suggest checking out just about every other outlet covering the Mets.

With Oliver Perez, Boof Bonser, Ryota Igarashi and Taylor Tankersley now out of the bidding and mixed reports coming out today about Jason Isringhausen’s health, I am adjusting the odds I set for the Mets’ bullpen hopefuls last week.

Based on Rubin’s report linked above and just about everything else I’ve read, I’m going to now assume that Taylor Buchholz and Tim Byrdak, barring injury, join Francisco Rodriguez, Bobby Parnell and D.J. Carrasco as definites on the roster. That leaves, by my count, six dudes competing for two jobs. They are:

Pedro Beato (1:1): Beato was at 1:1 last time I did this and hasn’t done much to change his standing. His small-sample Grapefruit League performance hasn’t been dominant, but it hasn’t been atrocious either and he’s still 24 with a lively fastball and a ticket back to the Orioles if the Mets can’t find a spot for him on the 25-man roster.

Jason Isringhausen (1:1): Isringhausen slips to even-money due to the injury talk. By the Mets’ accounts he’s still in the mix, but hearing a pop in your elbow when you’re 38 and already a veteran of multiple arm surgeries is not a promising sign. If he’s healthy he’s probably still in, but it’s looking a lot less likely he’ll be healthy. And at some point the Mets will have to question — if they haven’t already — if they’ll want to lose Beato or risk Pat Misch and Manny Acosta on waivers to keep around a guy with so much mileage on his arm that could get hurt at any time.

Manny Acosta (2:1): Acosta has been pretty good, if a bit wild, in Grapefruit League action. Gun to my head (and based on very limited information), if I needed to pick one of them to pitch an important late inning in April, I’d probably take Acosta over Beato. Luckily no one’s holding a gun to my head and I don’t make those decisions, because Beato probably offers more long-term upside than Acosta.

Pat Misch (2:1): Pat Misch has been perfectly Pat Mischy in 16 2/3 Spring Training innings: Good control, not a lot of strikeouts, hit kind of hard but not terrible. He benefits by being left-handed and versatile. Also, his middle name is Theodore, which is my middle name too.

Mike O’Connor (5:1): O’Connor’s odds are long because he can be sent to the Minor Leagues without going through waivers. It’s hard to imagine a situation wherein the Mets are so eager to keep O’Connor around for April that they’re willing to give up one of the four guys above him on this list. His odds are better than Blaine Boyer’s because he is left-handed.

Blaine Boyer (9:1): Though Boyer has been good in limited Grapefruit League action, he is a hard-throwing right-hander like Beato and Acosta, and unlike Beato and Acosta he can be sent to Triple-A. I’d say his best chance for making the team now would be a rash of injuries. We’ll probably see Boyer in Queens at some point in the middle of the season.

The field (14:1): The field’s odds get a little better, mostly to make the math work out. But there has been some player movement lately, so this includes the off chance the Mets pick up someone from waivers or on a Minor League deal that they’re convinced is better than the in-house options.

According to just about everyone, the Mets have released Oliver Perez. So you can exhale.

I hate to say I told you so.

The decision brought about celebration in even the most contrarian corners of the fanbase. The universally reviled Perez, he of the 6.81 ERA in 112 innings since signing that lucrative three-year contract, is gone. We will suffer no more of his meltdowns. He has hurdled over the foul line into Mets’ history.

There’s really not much else to say. But I’ll add that though the Mets-fan part of me is warmed by the news — more proof that the new front-office is willing to cut bait on sunk costs and compile the best possible roster regardless of contractual nonsense — some other part of me sees it as at least a little bit sad. I got at this before, a couple weeks ago.

I know no one’s eager to pity a guy who is about to make $12 million this year for doing absolutely nothing. But Oliver Perez is 29. He has been playing baseball professionally since he was 17. He has lost his fastball. What must it be like to have the body that took you to such heights stop cooperating? What does Ollie do now?

So there’s that.

Predictably, the news was met with a ton of backlash from Mets fans and media, because just about everything everywhere is met with backlash. Mike Nickeas could cure cancer tomorrow and fans would wonder why he wasn’t working on learning the pitching staff.

I mean, we’re talking about the same Luis Castillo here, right? The guy we’ve been hoping to see released for years? Boo-is Castillo?

This is a good thing. For one, it demonstrates with certainty the new front office’s willingness to cut bait on sunk costs and its ability to convince ownership to do so when necessary.

Many will and have said already that it was a move prompted by perception more than baseball. And as Sandy Alderson said, perception certainly played a role in the decision. But have we all forgotten that Castillo hasn’t been good for several seasons?

It’s true that we don’t know yet if Brad Emaus or Daniel Murphy or Justin Turner can handle the rigors of playing second base every day in the Major Leagues. But we already knew that Luis Castillo couldn’t, right? I mean, the worst thing that can happen is the Mets end up with a crappy second baseman who is not Castillo. The upside to keeping him around was the chance the Mets would end up with a crappy second baseman who was Castillo.

This is what we (and by we, of course, I mean me) wanted: A front office willing to move on from bad contracts and put faith in untested younger players when the veterans in the position have already proven incapable. Hell, this is what I’ve been bleating on about for years. Since no single month’s worth of Spring Training at-bats will prove an adequate sample to assess the younger second-base candidates in Mets’ camp, the team will give at least one of them the opportunity to prove his merit in real games against Major League pitching.

Good. Maybe he will turn out to be a worthwhile cost-controlled contributor to the next contending Mets team, whenever that might come. Castillo was not that guy.

All that said, I kind of liked Castillo. I half-joked before last season that he was my favorite Major Leaguer because of his one remaining outlying skill, the amazing plate discipline that gave him a unique ability to consistently get on base without any appreciable power.

And I don’t think he always got a fair shake from Mets fans. Yes, he wasn’t very good. Yes, he once dropped a pop-up. But like many players, he took a ton of flak for a contract that he would have been crazy not to sign. That’s Omar Minaya’s fault, not Castillo’s.

Since we’re on the topic, and because several readers emailed me about it this morning, I should mention Andy Martino’s column today suggesting that Mets fans dislike Castillo, among other reasons, because he’s Hispanic.

I don’t think that’s the case; I’m pretty sure Mets fans disliked Castillo because he was paid a lot and wasn’t very good at baseball. But it’s hard to argue that race has no bearing at all on the way baseball players are perceived among some segments of the fanbase and, for that matter, the media.

At Amazin’ Avenue, Matthew Callan wrote something pretty similar to what I planned to write before Castillo got cut. I have heard plenty of fans call Castillo lazy and repeatedly question his work ethic and attitude, and I’m not sure he’d necessarily get the same treatment if he were a white guy.

Playing through pain and with limited physical ability are the two of the hallmarks of players often deemed scrappy, gritty hustlers, and Castillo certainly did both of those things and never seemed to benefit from that distinction. Still, I wonder if it had as much to do with his countenance as his race; Castillo’s face, no matter his mood, seemed locked in a sort of perma-scowl, and from the comforts of our living rooms we are all phrenologists and body-language experts.

Anyway, we can blissfully ignore that hot-button issue for the moment. Castillo is no longer a Met, and in his place the team will turn to someone younger that still has a chance — slim, maybe — to be better.

Center fielder Matt den Dekker landed at No. 28 on Toby Hyde’s Top 41 prospects list this year, but he just catapulted himself to the top spot around these parts. Here’s how:

Well that’s just exceptionally clever. Right down to using @UpperDekker as a Twitter handle.

We talked to den Dekker at the Mets’ Minor League complex a couple weeks ago for a video bit that’ll roll out sometime in the future, but he didn’t bring up Arrested Development. I did ask him about this catch, though.

The Mets cut eight players today. Adam Rubin has the unofficial list.

No big surprises here. Dillon Gee heads to Buffalo, securing Chris Capuano’s spot as the fifth starter. Ryota Igarashi, Boof Bonser and Taylor Tankersley were three of the four longest shots in my Mets bullpen odds post, and I don’t think anyone ever seriously figured Jason Pridie, Russ Adams, Raul Chavez or Dusty Ryan for opening the season with the big-league club. In fact, depending on how the Major League roster shakes out I’m not even certain any of those guys will be everyday players in Buffalo.

The bigger news, I suppose, is the guys that weren’t cut: Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo hang on, but more importantly to this blog at this moment, our horse in the second-base race Justin Turner gets to stick around for at least another day or two. It seemed a fait accompli — at least among the team’s beat writers — that Turner would be cut this morning.

I imagine some fans and nearly all media will find it frustrating that the team hasn’t yet pared down the second-base competition, but, well, whatever. Stepping back from it, I’d rather the assorted decision-makers take their time and make the right choice than haphazardly stick Luis Hernandez in the spot because he has looked good over the past week.

So we beat on, etc.

A number of people have pointed out to me, incidentally, that since Brad Emaus is a Rule 5 guy and Turner has options, the Mets should keep Emaus around and extend his audition into the season, knowing they have Turner stashed in Triple-A as a fallback option.

I don’t think that’s a terrible plan. My case for Turner is only that his Triple-A stats from 2010 are, due to park and league factors, more impressive than Emaus’, and it doesn’t seem like most Mets fans appreciate that.