I do not wish to to absolve Opie of any responsibility for his horrendous play and even worse attitude. However, the team is stuck in a holding pattern until the Mets brass begins to understand the basics of leverage; more to the point that Opie has all of it right now. Even if Opie is not smart enough to purposely exert his leverage in this situation--and I don't know if he is--I know Scot Boras is that smart.

Clearly, Perez's best shot at redeeming what is left of his rapidly fading career would be to take a stint in the minors to regain something he lost or develop something new--and to do it against inferior hitters. That's really the only play he has, and it's far from any guarantee of future success. His only guarantee is that going to the minors will not leave him any worse off than he is right now where his manager has lost all faith in him, his teammates are snickering behind his back to the press about how worthless he is, and even a fellow pitcher and good company man like Ron Darling is openly advocating for his release.

Despite that, I completely understand Opie's reticence about going to the minors for the Mets. He has every reason to believe he is persona non grata in New York no matter what he might do in the minors. I figure the endgame for Perez/Boras is to force a DFA/release (I am not sure which is the most appropriate term). Should he clear waivers (yeah, right) I imagine Boras would try to move heaven and earth to get Opie to Dave Duncan in St. Louis, even if he had to take a minor league deal to do it. If he has to go to the minors to resurrect his career, he's probably better off doing it for some other team under a different contract.

Barring a move to St. Louis, he'd obviously take what he could get. I would not (as some have) jump to the conclusion that no one would sign Opie to a league minimum deal. In that regard, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the recently DFA'd Dontrell Willis over the next few days.

What is vexing as a fan is that the Mets brass, for their part, appear not to realize that they’ve already lost in this situation. Wilpon & company (I'm not sure that Minaya makes any decisions anymore) appear to want to replicate Detroit's Dontrell Willis experience rather than learn from it. [Sigh] Perez cannot make things right in New York; not under this contract. That's the risk of doing a big deal for a pitcher with Opie's volatility. The Mets apparently fear that Perez might someday come back to hurt them after signing with some other team.

[Facepalm]

Opie would have to become awfully good to do more damage to the Mets than he is doing right now, His performance is horrendous, but beyond that he’s costing the team a bullpen arm that could actually be helping.

But then, I suppose if this front office understood sunk costs and the relative value of roster spots we wouldn’t be looking at Mejia or GMjr would we?