Wrestling with my opinions about Luis Castillo has not been an easy task. His numbers have been bad. But at the same time his numbers have been good. When he came to the Mets in 2007, he finished off the season batting .296 with 20 RBI's, in about 50 games where he had 18 RBI's in his previous 80 games. Then in 2008 he hit a low where he batted only .245. At that point it seemed perfectly fine to be agrivated with Luis. He would then respond in 2009 being one of the more consistent players on the team batting .302 with 40 RBI's and playing in 142 games, which was no small feet with the 2009 club. In limited time in 2010, his 2008 self showed in his .235 batting average.
There are a lot of reasons for his last decline, but this article isn't about that. That topic is covered in many other articles over many great blogs. Also, you can probably ask anyone on the train, and they will give you a fairly good opinion about why Castillo has been on a decline.
What I want to know is why do I not like him as a baseball player. I am generally a nice person and a very understading person. What is it about Luis Castillo that gets me angry? How has he been connected in my Mets memory to become such a villian, when in reality he is not a villian at all. Castillo generally plays with grit and usually runs hard. These are aspects of play that I usually praise, and are my favorite in baseball.
After deep reflection for about a month (seriously), I think I know why I'm upset with Castillo. Through years of repressing the 2007 collapse, I think I somehow correlated his addition to the 2007 Mets as part of their collapse. At some point in my personal history of being a Mets fan, I must have felt that although he played well in 2007, when he came aboard the Mets really started to fall apart. Castillo harbors some form of that 2007 collapse unfairly, which is probably why I judge him so harshly. So Luis, I apoligze about that.
That revelation isn't my complete Castillo story. From 2009 and forward, Castillo has been another mental focus. I believe that I seem him as a full representation of the old, overpaid portion of the Mets. This disdain is not Luis' fault but rather my feelings about upper management. As I alluded to before, I like baseball teams that have grit. I like teams that are built around young talent because when they lose, its not so bad, and when the win it feels like an achievement. Somewhere again in my psychosis I have set Castillo = Bay, Beltran, Krod, Bonilla, etc.
In short, my negative feelings about Luis Castillo are not about his play, persay, but are rooted in a deeper reflection of this team in the latter half of this past decade. He has this ambiguous, intangible connection to the 2007 collapse and he, by being a part of the overpaid, overage component of the team, has unfairily made him the poster boy for what feels wrong about the 2009 and 2010 team. His play alone has been poor, but it also has been good. The reception he gets, at least for me, is a representation of why the Mets need a clean house of sorts, to start anew and on a clean page.
