Historic

“Boras used the word ‘historic‘ to describe Rodriguez’s value.”

So historic, in fact, that the value that the Mets received in a trade for Frankie was two players who have yet to have names.

Sandy Alderson must have been laughing hard on the inside when reporters were asking him about whether Scott Boras was going to make his life more difficult by representing Francisco Rodriguez. How would we know that “I wouldn’t want to get into that” actually meant “Dude, Milwaukee is already fitting him for his own uniform, locker, and brewery.” As expected, the return on Frankie was nothing more than the two guys who are to be named later, but let’s name them now: Payroll, and Relief. The two guys coming from Milwaukee could be Laverne and Shirley and it wouldn’t matter (don’t be surprised if they actually are Laverne and Shirley), because the Mets and their fans aren’t going to have to worry about a certain option kicking in (and a certain blogger no longer has to think about adding a Frankie countdown widget to the sidebar … too much work). The Mets are even paying the Brewers to make sure that the front office can go back to counting millions for Jose and stop counting games finished. And the Brewers get to stash the man who is built to be a closer in the eighth inning (a role he was perfectly built for in 2002) so they can ride him to a division title (that bullpen with Axford and Frankie now packs a punch … get it? Packs a punch? Carlos Pena? C’mon, work with me), then let him walk after the season without having to give him an Applebee’s coupon much less $17.5 million. Everybody wins … even Bobby Parnell, who will no doubt get to close some games with Jason Isringhausen going forward. Heck, we may even get to see Miguel Batista again!

Okay, maybe not everybody wins.

So have the Mets raised the white flag? No, they just did what made sense in the long term which is what Sandy and the Superfriends were brought here to do. Maybe that answer will change after the inevitable Carlos Beltran trade (Brian Wilson is doing everything but sending out Google Plus invites to make that happen), but the long term goals aren’t changing then either. There’s a lot more work to be undone (Omar’s work, that is), but at least they’ll have the payroll flexibility to undo that work.

So in closing, I sincerely hope that Frankie doesn’t let the door hit him on the way out. Because Frankie hits back, and I’d feel sorry for the door.