Ramon Castro: Free and loving it

Did you know that Omar signed Ramon Castro? I hadn't realized it until recently, but I like it. A cause celebre among statheads, Castro was expected to break through last year for the Marlins. He was coming off a 2003 in which he put up a 937 OPS in 57 at-bats. Sure that's an insignificant sample, I remember thinking, but it looked so good.

So I was excited. I went ahead and drafted him in one of my fantasy leagues (not in the last round, either). What happened, of course, was an unmitigated disaster. He dropped a 135/231/260 line right on the the collective heads of the stathead community, in only 97 ABs but that's about as many outs as the Marlins could stomach. He struck out about a third of the time.

I don't know what the story was. He was facing sexual assault charges, which could have been a distraction (the poor guy!). Lucky for him he pleaded no contest, thus avoiding jail time, this past November. In December, the Mets signed him to a minor league contract. The guy's probably a creep, but on the other hand his minor league record is quite impressive, and he's still only 28! The way I see it, he'll be a creep whether or not he's a potentially great backup catcher for the Mets, so he might as well be a potentially great backup catcher for the Mets. Is that so wrong?