Mets sign acclaimed author to AAA contract.

This is day old news but I am just getting around to giving some thought to the Mets bringing back Miguel Batista to a AAA deal. Let's start with something you probably don't know about Miguel, he is a published author. He has written a book of poetry entitled "Sentimientos en Blanco y Negro" and a thriller called "Ante Los Ojos De La Ley". He is also a philosophy buff and his middle name is Descartes (this is seriously all true, you can't make up Batista facts like this). Doing the research for this post actually made me kind of like Batista, whereas he was previously just another low end pitcher, in reality he is kind of a cool Dominican R.A. Dickey.

On the baseball end of things, he is entering his age 40 season and playing for his 8th club (look out Octavio Dotel!). He had a few good years, most notably his 2003 campaign with the Diamondbacks where he posted a 3.49 ERA, 10 wins and a WAR over 4.5. Last year he started 4 games for the Mets and picked up 2 wins with a 2.64 ERA and a shutout. He also played for the Cardinals where he started one game, threw some relief and posted a 4.6 ERA.

To be honest, his numbers are pretty decent for a forty year old guy but he probably won't be able to contribute much. He hasn't posted a positive WAR since 2007, which makes you wonder how you keeps getting playing time with all these teams. Batista should provide some decent AAA depth and if he starts to show any flashes of his former self, he can be a useful late season call up, until then, I will be searching for an english translation of his novel.