More photos » by Paul J. Bereswill - AP

2 months ago: New York Mets pitcher Billy Wagner throws a pitch in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citi Field in New York, Monday, Aug. 24, 2009. The Phillies won the game 6-2. (AP Photo/Paul J. Bereswill)

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According to SNY.tv. The Red Sox have agreed to decline Wagner's option but will retain the right to offer him arbitration. The two players to be named later will be from AA, according to Hubbuch.

Here's the stats on everyone who has played for Portland, Boston's AA team, this year.

Here's a list of Boston's prospects.

The Mets seemed pretty eager to get Wagner to waive his no-trade clause, which would seemingly indicate they really wanted the salary relief, or did not want offer him arbitration this offseason. More analysis when we figure out who the Mets will be receiving.

Over the last decade or so, the Mets have made some big trades. Big, as in acquiring superstar players (Mike Piazza, Roberto Alomar, Johan Santana), and big as in big (Mo Vaughn). Successful trades for second-tier players have been scarce during this timeframe, although trades involving throw-ins John Maine and Oliver Perez worked out reasonably well. I saw a post over at Brew Crew Ball, which presented the last trade the Brewers had made with each team. I was curious to see the same for the Mets, and with some help from Baseball-Reference here it is:

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No kidding.

Good work, team.

More photos » by Gregory Smith - AP

Jeff Francoeur will be bringing his style of hard-headed baseball to Queens. (AP Photo/Gregory Smith)

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The Mets have solved all of their problems by trading Ryan Church to the Braves for Jeff Francoeur. Mets fans rejoice: the World Series is officially ours!

[Added by Sam]:

Growing up in Tennessee, most of my friends were Braves fans. I endured some painful moments throughout the 90s. Once Minaya came aboard, however, things improved. The Mets were better than the Braves, a result of the Mets improving and the Braves getting noticeably worse.

I used to talk up Lastings Milledge to them. He's got range. He can hit for power. Once Lastings comes up, you guys won't stand a chance. It was partly just me jokingly hyping the legend of an already hilarious persona. Yet, I believed.  Milledge had the skills and the upside that few players his age did. When they traded Lastings to the Nationals for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider my friends laughed. The player I had constantly been hyping was traded for an outfielder the Nats were benching. It was embarrassing. I told my friends at least he wasn't Jeff Francoeur. They got off my back.

Yet here we are again. After the Mets traded Milledge for Church they said it was upside for defense and reliability. Now, after trading Church for Francoeur they say it's reliability for upside. This explanation is just as specious as the first one. Omar Minaya just traded our third best hitter for a Sports Illustrated cover from 2005.

...love the deal…

…the Mets needed to shake up the roster… the potential francoeur has is much greater than that of church, plus the Mets lose nothing on the defensive side…  -Metsblog

What upside? His mythical, BABIP-inflated, flukey rookie year? The guy has plate discipline that makes Omir Santos look like Barry Bonds.  People talk about Francoeur's "'improvements" this year, which have tangibly resulted in a better  82% contact rate. Unfortunately, that means very little when you walk at a 3.8% rate. Less than 4% of his plate appearances result in a walk. For a team that was already having trouble getting baserunners, the Mets should expect to have ZERO offense going forward.

According to fangraphs, Francoeur was a 3.6 WAR player in 2007, but that was almost entirely the product of UZR rating his arm as +16 runs. Sure he has a great arm, but that number looks like a huge aberration. Not to mention, since 2007 his OPS has dropped from .782 to .653, this year sitting at a hefty .634.

Just over the course of this season, Francoeur's ZiPS rest-of-season projection is .304 wOBA, which seems pretty generous the way he's been hitting. By contrast, Church is projected at .344, an actually respectable number. Over a projected 280 PA for the rest of the year, that's eleven runs difference in offense. Factor in that nearly every defensive metric likes Church better in rightfield than Francoeur and you have a loss of 1.5 wins over the course of the season. Using the conservative estimate that 1 WAR is equivalent to 4 million dollars, that's 6 million lost just this season. Factor in that Francoeur is actually making $575,000 more than Church this season, Minaya has essentially flushed 7 Million dollars and any hope of a playoff run down the toilet. He's seemingly done the impossible: make this bunch of scrubs a few wins worse.

And that's just the damage for this season! Minaya will probably plan on Francoeur being the rightfielder for the coming years, just to prove he was right about his "upside". Has anyone been paying attention? The real reason the Mets don't make the playoffs despite having four of the best players in the National League: terrible complementary players in important positions. Francoeur is the offensive black-hole of rightfielders. Minaya is seemingly perfecting his own model for making non-contender teams. I seriously think he looked at the back of his baseball cards, saw Francoeur's averages and RBIs from past seasons and made the trade. Can anyone point out OBP on the scoreboard to Mr. Minaya?

I hope I'm wrong, but there's no Ryan Church coming from the other end of this deal. Minaya has seemingly conceded this season, and that's what makes this deal hurt most of all.

More photos » by Charles Dharapak - AP

We'll miss you, Carlos. Third place will be eagerly awaiting your return. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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Per Ed Coleman's Twitter feed (?) and MetsBlog's pregame report, roster changes are a-brewin' at Citi Field tonight.

• Carlos Beltran will be placed on the disabled list with a "bone bruise on his right knee"
• Fernando Martinez will be recalled from Triple-A Buffalo to take Beltran's spot
• LHP Ken Takahashi has been sent back to Triple-A Buffalo
• RHP Elmer Dessens has been recalled from Triple-A Buffalo
• LHP Patrick Misch has been recalled from Triple-A Buffalo
• INF Wilson Valdez has been designated for assignment

With all that as the backdrop, here is tonight's impossibly bad Mets starting lineup:

1. Alex Cora, SS
2. Daniel Murphy, 1B
3. David Wright, 3B
4. Fernando Tatis, LF
5. Ryan Church, RF
6. Omir Santos, C
7. Jeremy Reed, CF
8. Luis Castillo, 2B
9. Tim Redding, P

According to Hubbuch, The Mets got OF Chip Ambres from the Red Sox today. You may remember Ambres for his .376 wOBA with New Orleans in 2007. Total Zone had him at 17 runs above average that season. Ambres also had a three game stay with the Mets that year, in which he hit a GWRBI. He's probably an upgrade over Cory Sullivan or whoever else he'll take playing time from in Buffalo. If nothing else, he's a reminder of how uncreative Minaya is and how bad the Mets leftfield situation was in 2007. I suppose he's Emil Brown's replacement, and he's another player I don't want to see on the Mets or batting second this season.

The Mets have apparently traded Ramon Castro to the White Sox in exchange for RHP Lance Broadway. So, that just happened.

Broadway has a career minor league ERA of 4.10 and a WHIP of 1.43. He was the Sox's first round pick -- 15th overall -- in the 2005 draft. Omar Minaya mentioned on SNY that the Mets will send some cash to the White Sox.

Broadway has a solid 1.70 career GB/FB rate as a minor leaguer.

UPDATE: Broadway was John Sickels's #4 White Sox prospect for 2006 and 2007, He was #6 for 2008. He fell out of the Top 20 for 2009.

I see I'm a little late to this party, but I'll do it anyway:

Skip to 1:00

His current translated line from BP: .277/.324/.54