Maybe Molina just didn’t want to play for the Mets

MetsBlog.com’s Matthew Cerrone wrote an interesting article about Bengie Molina’s surprising decision to return to the Giants yesterday after seemingly being all but signed with the Mets. Molina inked a one-year, $4.5 million deal with San Francisco, but Cerrone reports that New York’s offer--which was made in mid-December--included $1 million more in salary for this season and a player option for 2011. So why would a 35-year-old catcher who didn’t draw a ton of interest as a free agent spurn a more lucrative multi-year offer?

In talking with a few people around baseball, it sounds to me like Bengie Molina always wanted to return to the Giants, or are at least he wanted play with a team on the West Coast. Also, as the offseason moved on, Molina became more and more skeptical of playing in New York. I had some people suggest he might have become leery of fan and media criticism, while another person speculated he was scared off by how Carlos Beltran’s surgery was communicated in the press, saying, “Players talk.”

There was similar speculation about Jason Bay’s lack of interest in the Mets, except for Bay at least more money and more years eventually won out and he signed a four-year, $66 million deal with New York. Of course, as Cerrone notes most Mets fans weren’t all that keen on signing Molina in the first place and they might be better off turning their attention to Yorvit Torrealba or even going with some combination of Henry Blanco, Omir Santos, and Josh Thole behind the plate for a fraction of the cost.