Oliver "Sunk Cost" Perez

Oliver Perez is not very good. I fact, he sucks. He's been lifted from the starting rotation and is now being used basically as a mop-up reliever. Considering he's in the midst of a 3 year, $36 million contract, that's not the best situation. However, he is contractually able to decline a minor-league assignment to fix what's wrong with him, so he's just sucking in the majors.

I saw this today from SNY's Howard Megdal, and I think I agree. Perez just needs to go.
More stuffI don't want to just reprint Megdal's whole column, so I'll just share this.

The two comparisons in the minds of Mets fans are Steve Trachsel and Bobby Jones, of course. Jones, lost after three starts in 2000, went to Triple-A, and returned to pitch to a respectable 4.46 ERA. Trachsel, who pitched to an ERA over 8 to start 2001 in roughly the same number of innings that Perez has thrown in 2010, went to the Minors, returning about three weeks later to pitch to a sparkling 3.34 ERA for the remainder of the season.

Both Trachsel and Jones had more career Major League wins than Perez, and both were older, likely making the move that much harder to stomach. But both of them wanted to get better, and both of them, especially Trachsel, found additional success in their careers by doing so.

I don't get Perez's motivation for refusing the minor league assignment. Obviously, based on the cases Megdal cites, it's worked before in the Mets organization. He can't possibly be happy throwing only mop-up innings, unless he's even weirder than I think he is. And unless he's just dumb (which I don't think is the case), he can't possibly have not noticed the fact that he is terrible. He is not going to get the chance to work out his issues in the big leagues, which is one move of Jerry Manuel's with which I actually agree (and possibly the only one this year).

He's either going to be a bad long reliever for the next year and a half, go to the minors, or get cut. The former is an untenable situation. The second is a good stop-gap measure at the very least, and could have the potential to help both Oliver Perez and the Mets. But if he refuses that, the last resort should be to end the relationship. That money is gone, and keeping Perez won't get it back. If he is unwilling to do what it takes to get better, he should not be on this team.