Yorvit Torre-Not Gonna Play For the Mets Next Year

The Mets flirted with Yorvit Torrealba, took him out for a second date, asked him to marry them, and were all set to walk down the aisle, while jealous and heartbroken ex-girlfriend Paul Lo Duca sat on the sidelines, watching it all unfold in front of his sad, tear-soaked face. Ramon Castro was the bridesmaid, and there was a good chance he might just get in on a little bit of the post-wedding reception, no-longer-premarital action.

It was a match made in heaven...well, not really

But before Yorvit could make it to the altar, the Mets entertained some serious second thoughts. They wanted true love. They feared a short-lived, tumultuous marriage, even though they longed for someone to grow old with. They took a gander towards the wedding party and saw Yorvit's mother, who time had not been kind to.

In the end, they just couldn't go through with it. Before you could say ".250 career hitter," they were out of there.

Outside the world of metaphors, the Mets did get cold feet with regard to Yorvit Torrealba this weekend, and the free agent catcher will not be playing in Queens for 3 years and $14.4 million of the Wilpon family fortune. As I indicated at the end of my last post, while I still favored bringing back Lo Duca, I had come to terms with the deal, and even supported it a little bit. Metsblog dug up more positive commentary from Rockies fans toward the end of last week about the uniquely-named backstop, and a little Torrealba/Castro platoon was looking okay. The support, though, never left the "I'm cool with this because it's going to happen either way and I'm going to convince myself it's okay because there's nothing I can do about it" realm.

So I'm not too disappointed - my emotions, to be sure, are not in as poor shape as the Mets catching situation. What do we do now? Paulie may have really wanted us, but you've got to think he's a little too proud to let us go crawling back to him at this point.

Because apparently every single Mets failure over the last 2 years was completely the fault of Paul Lo Duca. Metstradamus sums this up pretty well, so there's no need to say the same thing twice, but Lo Duca is being made a total scapegoat. It's clear that he was never Omar Minaya's first choice, and apparently he didn't come around enough to Salsa music over the course of the last two years to make Omar, Tony Bernazard and co. view him in a more positive light.


Look, I like Omar Minaya, but he absolutely wins d-bag of the month of November for this one. Say you're not interested in bringing back Paul Lo Duca because he's a 36 year old catcher and could break down over the life of his new deal. Come up with some other excuse. Or just do as your grandmother always said and don't say anything, if you don't have anything nice to say. But instead the Met front office just threw Lo Duca under the bus so they could to justify giving a career .250 hitter three years and $15 million.

And now, because Torrealba failed a physical, or was part of the Mitchell investigation, or whatever, we have no catcher. And we don't even deserve a 36 year old catcher who could break down over the life of his next contract, and won't get him, although it now really looks like he's the best option at this point.

Because we need to use our trading chips for pitching, and the free agent market is now officially void of viable regular catching options. My vote is to let Ramon Castro, who's deal didn't collapse - if you will - start and pray it works. Find him a decent backup and hope he and Castro outperform the Alberto Castillo/Tim Spehr pre-Mike Piazza platoon from 1998.

We're going on three years since the start of the Pedro/Beltran era, two since Billy Wagner and Carlos Delgado joined the party. New Yorkers have short memories and an even smaller degree of collective patience. Go get some good pitching, Omar, and prove you're still worth anything.

(Pics courtesy angrychicken.typepad.com, superbweddings.com)