As I was halfway out of a third floor window, a co-worker shouted that the Angels were set to pay $21.5 million of the $23 million remaining on his contract. So I shimmied back off the ledge, and ran over to this computer. I had to figure out if maybe this wasn’t that horrible. I mean, $1.5 million over two years could be good, right?

Nope. Just wishful thinking. According to Fangraphs, Matthews has been worth NEGATIVE $5.2 million over the first three years of his contract. He has contributed 1.1 wins WORSE than replacement level over the past three years. He has performed 10.8 runs WORSE than replacement level over the past three years. He’ll turn 36 during the season. Oh wait, and we gave up a leage average releif pitcher for him.

OK, Well, maybe he can just split some time with Angel Pagan in center field, but just until Beltran comes back in May….and if his career trajectory doesn’t turn around, they can dump him with minimal financial loss??? What do you think Omar???

“The fact that we have him for the next two years at a very reasonable price — I think the key for him is just going to be playing time. … I think he might be able to get more playing time here as the year goes on.”

Is there some Matrix-type device I can hook myself into where my body is being used as a battery for alien robots, but in my mind the Mets aren’t incompetent? If not, I’ll settle for the “Eternal Sunshine…” method where the Mets are completely erased from my memory…but I’d prefer not to have to go that far.

In managing a baseball team, like most other endeavors, I would imagine that the name of game is minimizing mistakes. For the most part, you can’t control injuries, opposing pitching, umpiring, and a host of other variables, so you should try your best to make the right decisions regarding those things over which you exercise complete control, like choosing your right fielder. (It’s like Donald Rumsfeld said: there are knowns, unknowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. It seems that one of the key jobs of the baseball manager is to totally nail decisions regarding the knowns, and do your best to prepare for and react to the unknowns). 

Choosing Nady over Swisher is one of those mistakes that is obvious to everyone, yet, somehow, happens anyway. It’s like the idea of batting Luis Castillo leadoff or signing Barry Zito or Gary Matthews, Jr. to enormous contracts. Apparently, everyone in the world knows it’s a bad idea except for the person who made the decision.

Oh, well. Hopefully, for the sake of the Yankees, they won’t make a similar mistake and put Melky Cabrera in center field. Brett Gardner probably won’t be much better, but he likely will be better. If it were up to me, and I was forced to have Nady in right, I would just take my chances on his defense and put Swisher in center. His 100 walks will result in a lot of runs over the course of the season.