The Braves just signed Billy Wagner to a one-year, $7 million dollar deal with a vesting option. Besides the obvious pain of the Braves improving by adding a player that was very good for the Mets, the Red Sox now get the 20th pick in the draft and a supplemental first round pick, both of which the Mets would have received if they had just hung onto Wagner until the end of the season. Instead, the Mets got two non-prospect minor leaguers, Chris Carter in Eddie Lora, who I seriously doubt will ever be useful to a major league team, especially in the National League. 

Defenders of the trade said that Wagner would not decline arbitration (wrong) and that the Mets saved ~3.5MM as part of the deal. Great, the Mets opted for 3.5MM dollars instead of two first-round draft choices. Hey, guess what Alex Cora and Chris Coste are going to make combined next season? Basically, just imagine a crappy political cartoon showing a bunch of office-drones with shovels next to two pits, one that is just a bonfire and the other that is labeled "major league talent," and they're shoveling all the money into the fire pit. That's the Mets front office in a nutshell.