On July 27, 2002, Omar Minaya, then General Manager of the Montreal Expos, traded Lee Steven, Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore, and Cliff Lee to Mark Shapiro's Indians for Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew.

In 2002, Major League Baseball owned the Expos. The offseason before, the Expos had narrowly avoided contraction, because the Twins, the other team in line for contraction, had another year on their lease of the Metrodome. In a month the league would agree to a new collective bargaining agreement that barred contraction, but at the time it still seemed a possibility. So MLB's proxy GM, Minaya, looked for a player to maybe help the Expos win a Wild Card berth, a parting gift for Montreal. 

One of the many front-office personnel the Expos shed under their reorganization by MLB was Tony LaCava, their farm director. He jumped to the Indians as a cross-checker. When Omar Minaya called Mark Shapiro about Bartolo Colon, Tony LaCava handpicked the prospects the Indians would receive. When the trade was announced, Shapiro, like Bill Smith would be six years later, was denounced as a young GM over his head. It also marked the first time, Minaya got "his guy" in a trade. 

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The Mets penciled John Maine into the 2009 rotation despite uncertainty about his health, following bone spur surgery after 2008. Expecting him to return to 2007 form was a stretch but it wasn't unreasonable to think he could provide 140 innings with a ~4.30 FIP.  The various preseason projection systems pegged him around this level of performance.  Like most of the Mets, Maine's season didn't turn out quite as well as hoped.

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All right, who's ready for round three? In round one, we took a look at the Mets' first ten rounds and followed it up with a look over the hitters of interest from later rounds. In this, our final look at the 2009 draft debacle, we'll look for potential sleepers from the ranks of the pitchers taken in those same later rounds.

On the whole, the Mets didn't grab a whole lot of pitchers in 2009, taking only 18 after the tenth round. Of those 18, eight didn't sign. Another (Zach Dotson) signed too late to debut this season. And two guys threw so little, I don't have much to say about them at all: 39th rounder Taylor Whitenton and 24th rounder Michael Johnson. So we'll toss them both aside for now. That leaves a class of seven guys to consider. Let's jump right into it.

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In his most recent mailbag, Marty Noble suggested the Mets sign free agent outfielder Mike Cameron.  This a smart proposal for a variety of reasons.  Cameron has long been one of the most underrated players in baseball (his career worth is on par with some low-level Hall of Famers) and even at 36 years old he is still a well above average performer.

At the plate, Cameron is most known for his power and strikeouts.  He can be counted on for 20-25 homers, a .200 Iso and 150 strikeouts a year.  He can also draw a walk and a .340 wOBA seems like a fair projection for 2010.  Considering he is one of the best defensive outfielders in the game, Cameron's bat is more than adequate.  Based on UZR and +/-, it appears he's about a +5 defensive center fielder.  Fangraphs WAR had him as a 4 win player in 2008 and 4.3 in 2009.  Being conservative let's say he's a 3-3.5 win player going forward.  He made $10 million in 2009, but given his age and the free agent market, a 1 year deal at about $8 million might be sufficient.  This would, in all likelihood, be a steal of a contract.  One other positive - he is almost universally praised for his clubhouse presence.  

Cameron vs. Carlos Beltran defensively is a toss-up but I'd probably give the slight edge to Cameron right now.  Given Beltran's injury concerns, it would be best to move him to left field if Cameron signed.  An outfield of Cameron-Beltran-Pagan would bring a smile to the faces of Met pitchers, as all 3 are adequate center fielders.  This alignment resembles the Franklin Gutierrez-Endy Chavez-Ichiro triumvirate employed by the Mariners earlier this season.  It would be prudent to find strong defensive outfielders to take advantage of Citi Field's dimensions.

Matt Holliday would be a welcome sight in Flushing next season but recent talk of his potential contract is a bit troubling.  A cheaper, short-term outfield solution might be a better move, and would allow for improvements in the rotation and 1st base.  Cameron returning to the Mets seems unlikely, but hopefully the memory of his last game as a Met in 2005 wouldn't stop him from signing.

via sportsillustrated.cnn.com

Matt at Metsblog noted yesterday that he loses count of the emails he receives from fans clamoring for a manager like Mike Scioscia.  I rarely receive emails from readers, and that's just fine, but I would agree there is a general perception that Scioscia's teams are always hard-working, fundamentally sound overachievers.  This perception likely stems from any number of factors:

• In Scioscia's guest starring role in "Homer At The Bat", a Simpsons episode, Waylon Smithers found him deer hunting.  He then starts working at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant because of a desire to work a blue collar job.  Baseball fans love a good blue collar personality.
• The Angels consistently make the playoffs.
• Scioscia was a catcher, a field general, a leader of the World Champion 1988 Dodgers.
• The Angels have had success without fielding brand name superstars.  (Vladimir Guerrero comes closest to the "brand name" title; Mark Teixeira played half a season in 2008)

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When Jeff Francoeur was traded to the Mets, I figured he would play out the season and be non-tendered.  A massive disappointment for his hometown Braves, this is a player who was one of the top 5 least valuable players in all of baseball in 2008.  At the time of the trade, he was on his way to another sub-replacement level season.  The previous 2 sentences are the main reasons why I was so befuddled by the effusive praise for the trade by the mainstream media, bloggers and my Met fan friends.  How did people not realize just how bad a player he had been for a significant period of his career?  Did the memory of a Sports Illustrated cover and a 1.21 gigawatt smile sufficiently hide the glaring warts on his game? 

Naturally, Francoeur proceeded to perform well for the Mets, posting a decent .311/.338/.498 line.  Combine production with an infectious personality and we're looking at a new fan favorite.  Of course, his plate discipline remained terrible.  He swung at a greater percentage of pitches out of the strike zone than any other Met and had the worst unintentional walk rate of his career.  Sustaining a high batting average with such awful peripherals is a tough task.  However, Francoeur has posted a BABIP in the .340 range in 2 other seasons (2005 and 2007), so who am I to say his .343 Mets BABIP is unsustainable? 

His Fangraphs WAR with the Mets was just 0.4, but that seems a little low because of a seemingly fluky -8.6 UZR in just half a season.  Another defensive measure, Plus/Minus, pegged his full season defense at +8.  Considering these 2 measures have agreed on Francoeur's defense in the past, and the questions about UZR reliability for outfielders at Citi Field, a WAR of about 1.0 seems more likely.  Extend to a full season and it's ~2.0 WAR, roughly league average.  This kind of production would be acceptable given his expected salary, but counting on that kind of performance from such an unpredictable player would be silly.

Francoeur is still under team control, meaning it is not necessary to give him anything more than a 1 year contract in order to secure his services for 2010.  Despite this, bizarre talk of an extension popped up towards the end of the season.  The supposed benefit would be to buy out the arbitration years of a budding superstar.  One problem: Mr. French hasn't shown any signs of adjusting his approach at the plate or becoming a star.  Teams buy out arbitration years of players like Brian McCann, Cole Hamels and David Wright (also known as "good players").  

Verdict: Bring him back next season but do not even think about an extension.  Small sample size infatuation is a problem with the Mets' front office (see Daniel Murphy, Omir Santos), and if you have the opportunity to go year-to-year on a question mark like Francoeur, you take it.  If arbitration* is necessary, hopefully the arbiter isn't as enamored with Frenchy's intangibles and fashion sense as most of the Mets fanbase is.  A salary of $4-5 million seems likely.  This is a player we can't easily project (although we can try), and there is a real risk he reverts to his disastrous 2006, 2008 or first half of 2009 form.  Additionally, do not pencil him in as the definitive right field starter.  Angel Pagan had an outstanding 2009 and has also earned the right to be considered for significant playing time, either as a starter or in some sort of platoon role. 

* - For a fictional look at Francoeur's arbitration hearing last offseason, check out this classic Joe Posnanski post.

More photos » by Matt Slocum - AP

This is why you don't trade for Brad Hawpe.

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Following the Rockies' playoff elimination, Brad Hawpe trade rumors have been floating around.  Impressive performances by some young and talented outfielders in Colorado have made Hawpe expendable, according to Troy Renck at the Denver Post:

Given the emergence of Carlos Gonzalez, Dexter Fowler and Seth Smith and the Rockies' Triple-A depth, Hawpe will be a trade candidate. He is under contract for $7.5 million next season, with a $10 million 2011 option that can be voided if he is dealt.

With the Mets in need of power in the outfield, the 30 year-old Hawpe might seem like a nice fit.  He's a good bet for ~25 home runs a year, and his career home/road splits are nearly identical.  This is no Vinny Castilla/Dante Bichette Coors Field product.  His .384 wOBA this season was 2nd best in the NL among right fielders, trailing only Justin Upton.  In 2008, it was 3rd best (.379).  Despite a large disparity in his platoon splits, Hawpe's bat would be a welcome addition to the Mets lineup.

Hawpe's defense, as was so eloquently put in this FanShot, is downright Dunnian.  His UZR over the last 3 seasons is an unfathomable -80.9.  Plus/Minus puts him at a terrible but not as bad -42.  He's probably a -20 corner OF going forward, which unfortunately negates much of his offensive value at a non-premium position.  Considering this, and also the fact that the Mets would have to give something up to acquire him, it's probably best to pass on Hawpe.  The Mets had one of the worst, if not the worst, defenses in baseball this season.  Adding an atrocious fielder like Hawpe would only exacerbate a major team deficiency.

Note: If a team decides to not offer a contract to an unsigned player on the 40 man roster, the player is non-tendered and becomes a free agent.  Per Tim Dierkes at MLBTradeRumors, some former non-tendered players include David Ortiz, Joel Pineiro, Jayson Werth and Takashi Saito.

Jeremy Reed initially looked like an unspectacular yet promising pick-up in the J.J. Putz trade. He was once a top prospect, tearing up the minor leagues and the majors in a brief 2004 call-up. Some put him on the level of Kevin Youkilis at one point. With average defense and unrealized potential at the plate, the 27 year-old Reed projected as a decent 4th/5th outfielder. Instead, his season turned into an under-the-radar disaster.

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