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PORT ST. LUCIE — A putrid chapter in Mets history was declared finished yesterday as Oliver Perez joined the ranks of the unemployed.
“The way I’ve been pitching, I think I haven’t been doing great,” Perez said moments after he was released by the Mets. “There’s guys doing better than me, and it’s going to be the best for the team and for me.”
Perez appeared in the team’s clubhouse at 8:15 a.m. and began shaking hands with other players, ending a tumultuous run with the organization that gave him one of the worst contracts in baseball history. The Mets will absorb the $12 million Perez is owed for this season, confident they provided the left-hander with every opportunity to prove he belonged.
The final straw came Saturday, when Perez allowed two home runs in a relief appearance against the Nationals. Though the Mets had hoped Perez could re-invent himself in the bullpen, it was clear after Saturday’s implosion — which included celebrating by Mets fans — that Perez’s release was imminent.
“The velocity was not there, the command was not there,” general manager Sandy Alderson said. “It wasn’t going to work in a starting role and it didn’t appear as if it were going to work in a relief role anytime soon. In that sense [Saturday] was a confirmation of what the evaluation had been up to that point.”
Perez’s release came only three days after the team swallowed the $6 million remaining on Luis Castillo’s contract. Castillo has since agreed to a minor league deal with the Phillies.
Perez, whose fastball consistently dipped into the 85-mph range this spring, probably will have a harder time finding work. Alderson admitted the Castillo decision was based largely on fan perceptions of the player, but Perez’s dismissal was purely a case of diminished skills.
Though many teammates were pulling for Perez and Castillo, there was a sense of relief in the clubhouse that a tired saga had concluded.
“At the risk of it sounding bad, there is a little bit of closure,” Jason Bay said. “It kind of brings a little more finality to those scenarios. From a player’s point of view, you hate to see the answer be two guys go home, but there was going to be a decision made, one way or the other.”
Bay said if Castillo and Perez had not been released, the potential for a sideshow would have been great.
“The way things have gone, people would wait for the first thing, to pile on, and then it becomes another entity,” Bay said. “It gets a life of its own and it gets in here. That was the unfortunate circumstance both those guys were in.”
Manager Terry Collins also is looking forward to a changed conversation.
“It’s time to move on,” Collins said. “It’s time to turn the page, and now let’s talk about who is going to be here.”
Perez received a three-year, $36 million contract before the 2009 season. For that money, the Mets received all of three wins from Perez — and countless headaches, including the lefty’s refusal to accept a minor league assignment last year. Along the way, the name “Oliver Perez” became synonymous with failure in the same manner “Bernie Madoff” is equated to fraud.
“The people everywhere are free to say all that stuff,” Perez said. “I know I did everything I can to get better, and the result doesn’t work right. I think I can do better than that, and that’s why I’m not going to quit. I want to get better, for my family and me.”