As always, salary info courtesy of the awesome Cot’s Baseball Contracts and stats courtesy of the awesomer Baseball Reference.

C - Brian Schneider: 2008 salary - $4.9M. 2009 salary - $4.9M. Walk year: One of my favorite, least talked about statistics from this past season. Mets pitchers with Schneider behind the plate: .254/.334/.407. Mets pitchers with Ramon Castro behind the plate: .238/.307/.366. The organization is in love with Schneider. I guess he’s the best option at the moment. Castro’s knees would explode if he was asked to squat for 120 games.

Prediction: Schneider walks next year. The Mets resign Ramon Castro and a Molina.

1B - Carlos Delgado: 2008 salary - $16M. 2009 salary - $12M. Walk year. I don’t know what to make of Carlos Delgado’s 2008. He had one of the better 2nd halves that I’ve ever seen. From the day Willie Randolph was fired through the end of the season, Delgado appeared in 92 games, hit 27 home runs, 102 RBI, and put up a line of .291/.374/.597. It’s a somewhat disconcerting thought that Delgado dogged the first 70 games of the season because he didn’t like Willie Randolph, but there it is. Regardless, as power hitting 1B go, Delgado’s a bargain at $12M and even if he can spread his 27 home runs and 102 RBI out over the season instead of 90 games, he’s well worth what the Mets are paying him. I expect a pretty huge year out of Delgado. In spring training, at least, he seems much more willing to check his swing and go the other way when teams play the shift. I still find it baffling he isn’t told to put the ball down the third base line when every infielder is playing on the right side of second, but I guess that’s some sort of baseball insult I don’t understand.

Prediction: Delgado has a great season and returns to the AL as a designated hitter in 2010.

2B - Luis Castillo: 2008 salary - $6M, 2009 salary - $6M, $18M guaranteed through 2011: I find it necessary to again fully disclose that I’ve defended this contract. They are pretty much locked in to this guy so much that they let the better-in-every-conceivable-way-and-some-inconceivable-ways Orlando Hudson go to the Dodgers for an embarrassingly low $3M. This contract will sit on Omar Minaya’s head every offseason until 2012. It’s gone from head-scratching to terrible to borderline unconscionable in about 18 months. It’s way too much money for what Castillo brings to the table and is completely untradeable without the Mets eating most of it. The only possible bright-spot in this otherwise awful situation is that hopefully Jerry Manuel will threaten his life for going off on his own to sacrifice bunt with no out in the first inning. Manuel also seemed much more willing to stick Castillo in the 8-slot where he generally belongs instead of wasting him in a 2-slot that much better populated with Ryan Church or Carlos Beltran.

Prediction: The Mets make a trade-deadline bid for Orlando Hudson and send Castillo, half his salary, and a pitching prospect to the Dodgers when they’re out of it by mid-June.

3B - David Wright: 2008 salary - $5M. 2009 salary - $7.5M: Mike Francesa lit a fire under Met fans after last season by calling Wright unclutch. Most of the argument stemmed from one at-bat in last season’s second-to-last series. Against the Cubs, game tied, rookie Mancrush Daniel Murphy leads off the bottom of the 9th with a triple. Everyone in the universe is thinking “we take this, season’s over.” Wright comes up with the building rocking… takes to 3-0… foul, foul, done. It’s completely and totally unfair to put a 2nd late season collapse on him — but it was then that I knew the Mets weren’t going to get in the playoffs. Francesa fueled the fire by saying the Mets should explore trading Wright or Reyes, which kicked off the predictable phone calls, which kicked off the theme “he’s not the best young player in the league. If you were offered Chase Utley or Ryan Howard for him, you’d take it in a second.” The problem Mets fans have is the not-so-distant memory of Derek Jeter breaking in the league and winning four World Series. They got agonizingly close in his second year. What everyone immediately forgot was that Wright was The Collapse away from winning the 2007 NL MVP. He was a one-man wrecking crew in The September That Never Happened. That August and September saw him hit 12 HR, 40 RBI, 40/27 BB/K, with a line of .372/.474/.628. He’s a fantasy stud who just doesn’t hit in the last three innings. We’ve convinced ourselves that the team choked the season away (again) because the bullpen gave up lots of runs. They also did it because the team didn’t score after the 6th inning. The team OPS in innings 1-3 is .840, .761 in 4-6, .690(!) in 7-9, and .636 (166 PA) in extra innings. We can dishonestly put it all on the bullpen, but the offense fails as a team late in the game. Argue demoralization because of the terrible bullpen? Maybe… but let’s not pretend the entire problem is one-sided.

Prediction: Wright strikes out in the bottom of the ninth in one at-bat and Met fans declare that he’s a choker who we’ll never win with. The more reasonable among us ask who we’re replacing him with.

SS - Jose Reyes: 2008 salary - $4M. 2009 salary - $5.75M: I’m going to go ahead and use the same paragraph I used in the postmortem: Met fans have to understand that Jose Reyes is the over-celebrating douche that you hated in some league you played in at some point in your life. A guy bouncing around the bases, dancing, and being obnoxious is going to raise everyone’s ire. This Mets’ team has to realize that if this guy is going to be annoying that every single team in the NL East is going to get up to play them. If you’re unstoppable (like the 1986 team) that’s one thing. If you’re mediocre, people are going to revel in destroying you. The Cardinals in 2006 did not start a “JOOOSEEEEEEE JOSE JOSE JOSE” chant in the locker room because they hated the fans. The Marlins did not mistakenly come to Shea with nothing to play for the last week and kick the Mets for fun. The Phillies did not put a picture of Jose Reyes on Shane Victorino’s locker following his celebration along the basepaths with “Calm down, Jose” written on it as a joke. If you want to be dicks, that’s fine… just understand that you need to play at 125% every night and no one is going to give you an easy time of it. With that rant done, Reyes isn’t going anywhere nor should he. Also, if someone could figure why he precipitously drops off in September, it’d go a long way toward fixing the team’s problems.out his precipitous production drop-off in September.

Prediction: Reyes and K-Rod create a save dance involving props and noisemakers. Someone comes out of the crowd in Citizen’s Bank Park and spears one of them.