The word out on the cyber street is that Oliver Perez, or at the very least the Angel of Darkness Scott Boras, would like a nice little pay day come free agency. A nice little five year, $60 mill payday. Now many will say, Dan who are you to judge whether or not Ollie deserves $60 mill and a five year contract? Luckily, I don’t listen to those people. If I were a Wilpon (the DNA tests said no), I’d laugh. Like a long, hard, deep laugh. Probably till I cried. When I finished, an hour later, I’d pick up my phone and call Omar in. He’d laugh too. We’d probably even let Willie come in, cause if there’s anyone thats in desperate need of a good laugh lately, its Willie.

Now like many people smarter than me, I think for the most part long term contracts for pitchers is a bad idea. There are too many deals similar to that of say Mike Hampton or Barry Zito, where it seems extremely good at the time but rapidly becomes extremely bad. One bad throw and suddenly your season is gone quicker than you can say Kerry Wood. So five years alone just seems too long, and thats when you’re talking about someone closer to the front of the rotation. Chances are, the closest Ollie’s coming to being a top of the rotation starter is that Johan Santana jersey I bought him for his birthday. Then there’s the price tag. $60 mill. Ollie has a 4.63 ERA. Its above 6 at Shea. He’s either walking or hitting a batter almost as often as he’s striking them out. He’s yet to go more than six innings, even if you combine his two shortest starts. All this, and he’s supposed to have shown improvement since last year. The picture doesn’t get any better by looking at the past. You’ll see only three visits below 5 for his ERA, and thats if you split up his seasons when he spent time in more than one place. Of those three, only two of them were joined by a winning record. He’ll walk his 500th batter this season, and if his current level of erraticness continues, he’ll hit his 50th batsmen.

The point, is that he’s unpredictable. Olliepredictable. Its guaranteed that there will be games every season that he is pulled from extremely early. His meltdowns are epic. Walking in runs. Grandslams. But, its also safe to say that he will at times go seven or eight seemingly effortless innings. The bad inning followed by six of no hit ball. The no run, 7 walk games. Chances are one way or the other, Ollie is epic. He will not be one of those guys who has an extremely bad eight run first innings, and then says ‘chances are we lost the game, so just let me pitch another five innings to give everyone rest.’ He is, and will always be, Ollie.

Now I don’t think come seasons end we should just wave goodbye, show him his door, and tell Charlie to reassign his locker and number. As far as 4th and 5th starters go, there aren’t a lot of options. Run down end of their career guys who will probably break into pieces (Duque). Younger and not fully trained (Pelf). Or the Wild Cards (Ollie, Figgy). For a more reasonable price, I could talk the stress of watching Ollie pitch, and hoping its the good one and not the bad one. But at five years and sixty mill, you need something more definite. And more definite is something Ollie will never be.