Andy Martino of the Daily News says that two major league sources are telling him that if Oliver Perez doesn’t show “significant improvement” over his last outing when he takes the hill this afternoon that the Mets are going to cut him. This despite Terry Collins’ statement yesterday that Perez will have additional starts beyond today.
I kind of don’t give a darn about Perez, but this may be an interesting test of Collins. Martino notes that Jerry Manuel used to ruffle feathers on the team by talking publicly about a player’s job being in trouble, and casts Collins’ statement yesterday as a different kind of approach.
And it is. But isn’t it also the case that, if Martino is right and Perez is released, that Collins is either (a) undermined as a guy who has any kind of authority to speak about such matters; or (b) shown to have been something less than trustworthy based on his comment yesterday?
I’m guessing in the case of Perez, however, most guys on the Mets will forgive either (a) or (b) if it means getting Ollie off the team. Between his performance and his obstinate refusal to take a minor league assignment last year when he badly, badly needed one, they can’t be big fans of his at this point.