The Mets have released Alex Cora and demoted Jesus Feliciano to the minors, tweets Adam Rubin of ESPN New York. Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports first reported (via Twitter) that the team would be "bumping" Cora from the major league roster in order to make room for Ruben Tejada. Feliciano's demotion clears a spot on the roster for Fernando Martinez.
As David Lennon of Newsday points out (via Twitter), by releasing Cora, the Mets avoid seeing the 34-year-old's 2011 option vest. Cora needed to play in just 18 more games to trigger the $2MM option.
Better than nothing I guess. Although if F-Mart is just going to be a 4th outfielder I’d rather have him playing everyday in AAA.
He was underperforming, but Alex Cora is really one of the nicest players in Major League Baseball. I wish him the best.
Well, he’s another step down the road from “future coach or manager” to actual coach or manager.
Fred Wilpon should hire him today as the Mets new GM.
Hope the RED SOX pick him back up. Not much of a hitter but was a great clubhouse leader & solid defender.
The Mets are a sorry org. They release the only player who seems to have any fire left. I guess calling out teammates who are joking around, despite being on a losing streak, is going to get you released.
if you looked into that story at all…it was wrongly reported..and he was not calling out teammates at all, but rather, reporters who were not showing respect to the team in its own clubhouse
Even if that were true, you believe that’s worth $2MIL? Cora played 18 more games, the Mets owed him that vesting option of 2MIL.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Derp. .207 BA + .543 OPS, where’s the fire?
Step 1 of the 6 Step Process to fixing the Mets is complete. Next:
2: Release Frenchy
3: Release Castillo
4: Release Ollie
5: Fire Omar
6: Move Jerry back to being a bench coach and hire a new manager
I’d love to see Cora wind up managing in the Mets system. I think he’d be a great manager.
They released the wrong infielder and demoted the wrong outfielder.
It’s not either or. They excised two of the right guys. Two down, two to go.
Cora had a an OPS in the mid .500s and was going to vest his $2 million option soon. Obviously, Castillo should be gone, but Cora absolutely deserved to go.
The problem is that BOTH Cora and Castillo deserve to go. However, the proper move was made because Castillo’s already guaranteed his $6MM next year, while Cora’s $2MM was able to be prevented.
The season is toast, at this point you might as well keep Castillo and see if you can convince any team to take him on in the offseason, no? Obviously, eating a ton of money. Even if you can only get like 1.5 million in salary relief, it beats outright releasing him, and a team might conceivably be willing to offer that since that’s bench player money.
Of course, that requires the Mets to be willing to eat salary, which they don’t generally like to do. Of course, so does releasing him, and that requires even more money.
This at minimum proves there is life…from the management.
Yea, releasing a player who has the respect of both sides in the club house seem smart.
Cora could have been batting .275 and he would have gotten released. Its all about the $$$ with the Wilpons.
How Omar keeps getting a pass after giving Ollie Perez $36 mil. over 3 years when nobody else want him for 1 yrs is beyonds me.
Alex Cora was due 2 million dollars next year, guaranteed, basically if he played another 3 weeks of baseball.
There is absolutely no way you can justify paying Alex Cora anything more than the league minimum.
The guy is a flat out awful baseball player. Maybe he’ll make a good manager some day, but to pay him 2 million dollars for his performance on the field is just beyod stupid.
He wasn’t hitting .275. Even if he did hit .275 he’d still be an awful baseball player.
There were literally half a dozen other players the Mets could have had for about 2 million dollars this year, and all of them much superior to Cora, and they chose Alex Cora. And they chose him as the first signing of their offseason, and they signed him for 2 million.
It was an awful signing, and I’m glad somebody got to Omar’s thick head not to compound the mistake, by bringing him back NEXT year for the same 2 million.
Anyone defending Alex Cora and his lack of baseball skills are insane.
Cora will make a good coach/manager some day.
The reason Cora was released is money.The reason the Wilpons have not given Castillo or Perez their walking papers is also because of money! They don’t want to pay two players while they play for some other team.No one can tell me that Castillo should be on the roster over Cora, even as poorly as Cora has played. The difference is that Castillo is making $6 Mil this year and next, Perez $12 Mil and the Wilpons don’t want to add ANY payroll. All they care about is huckstering the Mets fans into coming to their park, while making a half hearted act of competing. If they were serious about winning, they would have released both Perez and Castillo. These guys are dead weight, holding down the team and taking up two roster spots that could be used to actually help the team.
Obligatory comment about Cora being a great manager (Hell, let the Mets try him out in the organization in some form so they can get rid of Jerry Manuel soon.)
Obviously you havn’t familiarized yourself with the reply button since I’m sure that comment was directed to me. Here’s a hint- it’s the big button that says “reply”.
The time is now to blow it up.
You cannot build anything successful without a foundation.
Sure you have producers like Wright, Reyes, Santana but the time has come to build
supporting players around these guys – not role players with spotty performance issues.
C’mon WORST in the league with bases loaded.
I’m sorry but Omar must go.
Rebuilding a foundation starts at the TOP with leadership and good planning, not the bottom, but, I could be wrong.
I agree enthusiastically, except to say that the “TOP” as you call it, is not Omar. It’s Jeff Wilpon, Omar’s shadow counterpart & sometime puppet master…and I’m afraid there’s no moving HIM out of the picture any time soon.
He may end up on a serious contender as a solid middle infield backup player. It couldn’t get any better than that for AC.