High & Inside: Baseball Notes

If you need a brief refresher course on how to ruin a franchise - even a rich franchise - read on.

The New York Mets cut lefthander Oliver Perez on Monday, just three days after dumping second baseman Luis Castillo. It cost the team $12 million to get rid of Perez and $6 million to allow Castillo to play for a good team.

This purging of the semi-ludicrous contracts handed out by fired general manager Omar Minaya, however, is just part of the incompetence of the last decade.

When the Mets cut Bobby Bonilla after the 1999 season, they were on the hook for $5.9 million. Instead, the team's management amazed even Bonilla by replacing that modest amount with a $29.8 million buyout that would not take effect until 2011. Time passes, and now those annual $1,193,248.20 payments begin July 1.

The Mets also have eaten:

$9 million of the $10 million owed to outfielder Roger Cedeno when they sent him to St. Louis in 2004.

$4.5 million when they sent infielder Kazuo Matsui to the Colorado Rockies in 2006.

$3.75 million when they traded second baseman Roberto Alomar to the Chicago White Sox in 2003.

That's how you have one of baseball's highest payrolls and finish fourth.

Tim Lincecum, the skinny San Francisco freak who crushed the Phillies' dreams last fall, is a foodie who would put the contestants on Weight to shame.

The righthander says his typical order at a fast-food joint is three double cheeseburgers, two orders of fries and a chocolate-strawberry milkshake.

Many of you just heaved and the rest of us are consumed with jealousy.

Of course, as ESPN.com's Jim Caple pointed out, Lincecum keeps the calorie total down by scrupulously avoiding such items as lettuce and tomatoes.

And as the 168-pounder says - that's only one meal.

A jury of four men and eight women was selected for Barry Bonds' perjury trial, a process that took more than five hours of questioning in San Francisco's federal courthouse. Bonds has pleaded not guilty to one count of obstruction and four charges of lying to a grand jury.

Nelson Figueroa was named the fifth starter in Houston's rotation. The 36-year-old righthander will be the third former Phillie in the Astros' rotation, behind Brett Myers and J.A. Happ. . . . Reds starter Johnny Cueto will miss the start of the season because of an inflamed right shoulder.