Rick Reed for Matt Lawton, Anyone?

Note: Sippy Momo also posted his thoughts on the Mike Cameron trade. His entry appears immediately beneath this one. Also, this site is updated every week day by 2 p.m. We appreciate your support and hope you'll add Yankees2000 to your daily website-checking regimen.

Hey guys, A Friend of Mr. Glass's here, giving you consecutive content for the first time here at Yankees2000. This is going to be brief and it's going to sound familiar to those ESPN Insiders out there who have read Buster Olney's piece on this trade, but let me do as I did yesterday and take you back into the Mets' recent past.

It was the summer of 2001 and everything was looking terrible for the Mets. Sure, the announcer still bellowed out "Here they are, your 2000 National League Champion New York Mets!" as the players ran out on the field, but by July 2001 it felt like years had passed since the Subway Series.

The Mets would ultimately go on to make things exciting for their fans, but long before Armando Benitez and John Franco ripped Mets fans' hearts out, a deadline deal was struck by Slippery Steve Phillips that left many scratching their heads. On paper, the deal read a little something like this:

"The Mets acquired OF Matt Lawton from the Twins for P Rick Reed."

In the minds of Mets fans, the deal read a little something like this:

"The Mets sent away one of their most consistent pitchers for OF Matt Lawton and... and?... AND?!?!"

Only there was no and. Rick Reed for Matt Lawton straight up. Oooh baby. In the weeks leading up to the trading deadline (back when the team was flatlining and seemingly wanting no part of a third consecutive playoff appearance), Mets fans were dreaming of the possibility of cashing in at the trading deadline and restocking the farm. It didn't do us much good, but one thing we had was a lot of pitching to offer a contending club. The thinking went a little something like this:

Pitching wins championships! Contending teams need consistent pitchers! Rick Reed = trade deadline gold!

Well, that was a nice thought, only Steve Phillips decided to trade him for a guy who sucked for two months and then, four years later, was caught in violation of baseball's steroid policy. The point though is that the Mets didn't get optimal value for Rick Reed, as far as the fan base was concerned.

And that's kinda how I feel about this deal too. Sorry to ape Buster on this one, but the truth is that there are plenty of teams who need a centerfielder (most notably the Yankees and Red Sox, who play in big markets with a fan base that expects them to contend every year) and few quality centerfielders available via free agency. Mike Cameron = offseason gold!

Well, that too was a nice thought, only Omar "Lord of the Living Room, King of the House Call" Minaya got involved. What did he manage to net for the second best centerfielder (behind Johnny Damon) available? A 27-year-old who's never had an OBP over .321, never hit more than 13 home runs in a season and never driven in more than 43 runs. Sure, he set "career highs" in 2005, but please refer to the previous sentence when assigning value to Nady's "career highs".

None of that is to say that this is a disastrous trade. Nady could blossom as a regular in RF. At the worst, you gotta figure that he and Mike Jacobs would form a pretty formidable platoon at 1B (whether we think Jacobs should be platooned at all is another matter altogether, but we're talking worst case scenarios here; I certainly don't mind the Mets having an insurance policy, and I guess Julio Franco doesn't fit the team's "younger, more athletic" mantra when you get right down to it). One thing you can't take away from Nady is that he's consistently handled left-handed pitching, and that's a serious plus. The Mets got younger and cheaper.

But did they get better? Did anyone out there think that the most we would get for Mike Cameron was Xavier Nady?

When you first saw the link saying the Mets had traded Cameron for Nady, didn't you expect to read an article telling you the Mets had gotten Nady and a prospect or two?

I certainly did.

It was just a headline! They didn't have room to mention the prospects we got! They didn't have room in the headline for that live bullpen arm that only Rick Peterson, Pitching Guru, could tame!

Only no. Cameron for Nady. That's it. No one's going to confuse this trade with P Scott Kazmir for P Victor Zambrano, but still I can't shake this sense that we didn't get optimal value for Mike Cameron.

Will this move be parlayed into a trade for Manny or Delgado? Depending on who you read, that's either possible or likely. Between Cameron and Piazza alone, the Mets have saved about 18 million dollars. Of that, 10 is earmarked for Billy Wagner. Another 5 to 6 is going to a catcher. Mets brass won't hesitate to take on some payroll if it means making the playoffs.

If the Mets do pull off a blockbuster and turn this trade into Manny or Delgado, does this trade become better in retrospect? We can't say. It depends on who the Mets give up. (Note: at least with me, the trading of OF Lastings Milledge will not go over well, even for OF Manny Ramirez. Would the Mets make the playoffs with Manny next year? Almost definitely. There's a lot to be said for that, and I won't argue any differently. I guess I just love the idea of Wright, Reyes, and Milledge leading this franchise for the next 15 years).

As for now, to me it just feels a lot like the summer of 2001 all over again, only this time, with the team on the edge of the playoffs, the stakes are so much higher, and missteps will loom so much larger.

- A.F.O.M.G.