Athletic Fraud

The Mets released Luis Castillo. Who cares, right? Wrong. In the offseason the stories have been all about Sandoval's comeback, the health of the starting pitchers, and of course the continuing questions about Zito's and Rowand's lack of performance. Their appears to be an inverse relationship between salary and performance on the Giants with Posey earning close to the minimum and Zito/Rowand the top earners. Together the infamous overpaid duo will earn over $32mm this year and would it be easy to release them? Obviously not. The Mets decided to swallow $6mm of his final contract year in the same week that Irving Picard sues them for $1 billion. This begs the following question - if a team that has been funded by a Ponzi scheme and is now being sued for ten digits decides to stomach a seven digit salary, can a team like the Giants release a Zito or Rowand? The argument against this (or at least for Zito) is that even as poor as they have played, they are still better than say someone playing in Fresno. Zito would most likely not be considered a 5th starter on most teams and to his credit I think Giants fans have been wearing garlic fries goggles these past couple of years. We've been spoiled by good pitching and one of the greatest pitching staff's in the team's history. That is why we want to vomit in our chowder bowls when Zito hangs a curve ball.

Castillo's narrative reminds me of a certain shortstop last year who became a postseason hero and left "because of pride" or something like that. Renteria was the MVP in the World Series so he decided the Giants counter offer was offensive so he went to the Reds. (I believe at a similar salary as the counter offer) The Giants were lucky to have that last year option - Renteria was exceptional in the postseason but the condition of his body is not. Sabean/Neukom are smart investors and they know the rules of smart investing which is to base your decisions on future performance and not past. (I know you're thinking well what happened with Zito/Rowand) Renteria is not worth his $10.5mm option so they counter offered at about 10 cents on the dollar. In the financial world this would be considered a very distressed asset and I would have to agree. There is no upside to keeping a veteran at the end of his career when you could be developing the future stars of the team. Case in point: Posey in 2010, Belt in 2011?

When Madoff made off with the Mets investment portfolio it reminded me of a similar pyramid scheme that occurs in sports. We as fans invest in a team by buying tickets and merch where we expect to receive a service/entertainment in return (the game). The team takes our money and other sources to reinvest in the business and to pay the players. We pay to see them perform. When a player underperforms is this athletic fraud? Should Zito return some of his "fradulent" profits he's earned since he kayaked across the bay? As a player I think it would be hard to accept such a high salary when you know you are not playing well or not to the level of your contract but how do you monetize athletic performance? Is a home run worth $100K or a strikeout $10K? Is there a lesson to learn from Castillo's demise? Baseball for thought.

In other news: Haft is reporting from Scottsdale that Wilson strained his oblique but he said it's not serious and should be available openning day. Giants currently have the best record in spring ball. I believe they did last year as well. I smell repeat.