According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, the New York Mets are currently shopping second baseman Luis Castillo and have gone as far as to contact the Rockies, who are looking for a replacement for the disappointing Melvin Mora.
Rosenthal is right to point out that Castillo is not one of the Mets’ biggest problems. His wOBA of .303 does leave a lot to be desired, but it is respectable, especially considering his UZR/150 is a positive 2.5 so far this year compared to a minus-12.7 and minus-9.5 over the last two years.
Still, with Daniel Murphy planning to move back to second base and getting closer to playing each day, it does make sense to move Castillo now. Actually, now is probably as perfect time as any.
The biggest problem the Mets are going to run into is that of salary. Castillo is owed the remainder of his $6 million salary this season and another $6 million next year. So in reality the Mets will have to eat quite a bit of that in order for this not to become a pure salary dump.
That’s not to say the Mets can’t move him without eating a large portion of his salary, but the more they eat the better the return.
It’s really hard to predict exactly what the Mets are going to do with this situation because it is hard to tell if they are considering themselves playoff contenders. At this point you’d have to think that they think they are, which would lead me to believe they’ll eat salary in order to get a better player—hopefully a pitcher.
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