With the calendar flipping from August to September brought the Mets a trade and the normal expanded rosters and prospects making their way to the big league club. The first major move that happened yesterday was the Mets finalized a trade that sent Francoeur to the Rangers for Joaquin Arias. For the most part, Francoeur is excited about this trade because he gets to go to a club making the playoffs, but he'll miss his teammates here (normal cliche sayings, etc, etc). In the long run what this means for the Mets is that this is one issue, albeit minor, the Mets do not have to deal with this winter. Later at 213 we will look at Francoeur's brief (but feels like a century) stint with the Mets.
In return for Jeff, the Mets get 25-year old infielder Joaquin Arias. Essentially, he is very good at somethings, and very bad at others. He is a very fast player (is small bursts) which allows him to make great plays in the field and cause trouble on the basepaths. This fits into the Mets game. The problem is in 101 AB's, although he has a nice .276 BA, he has only 6 extra bases, 2 walks. The Rangers were really done with him, which is why we have him. We could use another infielder though, and I'm interested to see how he works out. He will be profiled for tomorrow's “Get To Know A Prospect” entry.
The last two moves are about call-ups. We all had a feeling that Mejia was going to be rejoining the team. I am in the group that is a little shocked that it will be so soon (next start on Saturday) since he had only one start at AAA (albeit an incredible start). Let's see what he can do as a starter. Duda really surprised me. I know we as Mets fans have been calling him to come up for a while, and now he is here. I hope he becomes a starting OF'er otherwise his callup will be studpid and very a la Nick Evans.
