What Are The Mets Doing?

I doubt I need to convince you that trading Lastings Milledge for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider wasn't a particularly bright move by the Mets. I think everybody pretty much agrees that this was quite silly- the worst trade the Mets have made since Rick Peterson convinced Jim Duquette that he could turn Victor Zambrano into Pedro Martinez.

Let's see how the great Omar Minaya is justifying this transaction.

"We see ourselves as a better team now. [The trade] fills two needs with players in the primes of their careers."

What an awesome quote. Brian Schneider's OPS+es, since 2003 (the first year he played over 100 games):

2003: 78
2004: 83
2005: 97
2006: 72
2007: 77

Schneider just turned 31. I'm gonna go ahead and say that 04-05 was the prime of his career (and what a prime it was). It is unclear what Minaya is getting at here. Brian Schneider is terrible- we all agree on this, right?

"I'm big on defense up the middle," Minaya said. And he considers the Mets' catching "situation" as good as "any in the game."

I honestly have no idea what this means. I understand that he is completely wrong, regardless of what he is getting at. But is he trying to say that Ramon Castro and Brian Schneider give the Mets a big edge at the catching position? He can't be, right? Maybe just defensively? That's wrong, too. I really don't know. I don't think the writer, Marty Noble, understands either- putting "situation" in quotes was a nice touch.

Oh, and speaking of the writer:

"Schneider's offensive production, while not eye-catching, is quite comparable to that of Lo Duca. Schneider has averaged 12.9 RBIs per 100 at-bats over the last three seasons. Lo Duca, playing his last two seasons with the Mets' more productive batting order, averaged 11.4 RBIs per 100 at-bats from 2005-07. Schneider, likely to bat eighth for the Mets, hit 20 home runs in 1,187 at-bats the last three seasons, and Lo Duca hit 20 in 1,402 at-bats. Neither played his home games in a park conducive to home run hitting."

RBIs per 100 at-bats. Now that is a stat I wish I had come up with. While we're doing three year averages:

LoDuca VORP (05-07): 16.3, 27.2, 9.2 (average: 17.6)
Schneider VORP (05-07): 16.0, -4.9, 2.4 (average: 4.5)

Oh, but we weren't talking about crazy stats like VORP; we were discussing run production.

The Mets are going to pay Brian Schneider $9.8MM over the next two years. If they are lucky, they will get replacement-level production from him. They are doing this by choice- in fact, for this privilege, they swapped a 22-year old OF with a projected .813 2008 OPS for a 29-year old OF with a projected .815 '08 OPS.

All of this information was readily available to them, and people are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to make these decisions. Good work by everybody involved, really.

More on this trade: Law, R-D, ShysterBall, MLBTR.