How the A's Move Today Got Me Annoyed at the Mets

The report that Willy Taveras was released outright by the A's really ticked me off as a Mets fan...

HERE'S WHY:

1) With the outright release of Willy Taveras the A's are taking a $4 million hit on their payroll this season.  Meanwhile the Mets are "saddled" with Castillo at $6 million, and cannot release him. 

How is it the Mets are incapable of dropping Castillo and paying $6 million/year for the next two seasons, but the A's are completely capable of dropping Taveras and absorbing his $4 million tag this season?  I understand the A's are paying little in overall salary fo dropping Taveras won't kill them, but think about this.  Percentage wise, Taveras' $4 million is a larger piece of the A's salary this season than Castillo's $6 million is to the Mets (I realize that Castillo has another year on his contract, but contracts are bought out based on payroll for the year not the full contract at once).  While I realize there are other factors that make their way into this discussion, that's a tough pill for me to swallow, especially when there were upgrades available for them, like Hudson.

2) Willy Taveras could be had for $400,000 right now had the Mets not traded Stokes for Matthews Jr.  Now there is no way the Mets could have expected this to happen, but it got me annoyed that they could have potentially gotten a better defensive player for their outfield depth.  And when comparing the two, according to the UZR stat and the good old "eye test" (I'm not wild about Sabremetrics) Taveras would play a superior defense to Matthews, all while costing less in money and in years.  Granted, Taveras hits like my grandmother .240 with a .275 OBP, Matthews isn't much better at .250, with almost 100 less AB's than Taveras.

I'm NOT advocating picking up Taveras, but I do think there WOULD be have been some value to adding him now at the major league minimum, as a 5th outfielder, had the Mets not acquired Matthews Jr.

I might be overreacting here, but the bottomline is I am annoyed at this offseason in general.  And wish the Mets did more to improve the team than they have so far...