Exactly one year ago to the week, Jeff Francouer was struggling. He was hitting under .270 for the Atlanta Braves. Even though the fans loved their hometown hero, the Braves thought he was so done that they not only traded him away for an uninspiring journeyman outfielder, but they did it to their cross-town rival New York Mets.

As awful as 2009 was for the Mets, at least it went out on a high note; the Mets signed Jason bay to a long term deal and appeared to be making some headway this offseason.

The Mets tried to get rid of a distraction today by firing Tony Bernazzard, and somehow turned this into a bigger distraction. While at the press conference announcing the firing, Omar Minaya criticized Mets blogger Adam Rubin, who first broke the story of Bernazard's outbreak. the whole story can be found here:

Omar Minaya caused a bit of controversy the other day when he stated the follow

omar is not doing much. getting puts and k-rod is nice, but we're not done yet and he needs to wake up. the yankees are spending like crazy, getting CC, Burnett, and teixara. to put it in perspective, the royals and marlins' payrolls COMBINED equal less than 15 million dollars. the yankees' is 209 million. wow. anyway, assuming the yankees are finally done spending, the red sox still have a lot of money and could use a pitcher, which means they will probably be our main compeition for lowe. we should wait until febuary when he is desperate and then resign perez for cheap i think to bolster that rotation, but as long as we get one of wither lowe, perez, or ben sheets i am happy with our rotation.

Amazin' Moments #87

Lots of changes to talk about on this podcast. We welcomed our second daughter into the world right around the time that Willie Randolph was being fired in California. I’ll give my thoughts on the firing of Willie Randolph and what it might mean for the Mets. I also talk about the measures Omar Minaya may need to take if the Mets don’t substantially improve over the next four weeks. Greg from Connecticut calls in and expresses the frustration that many Mets fans have been feeling.

Audio

MP3 File

I think it is very unfair the way omar minaya has been treated as of late. i don't know enough about the wilpons to protect them, but minaya should not be drawing any blame or poor publicity for his handling of this team. When minaya took over in 2004, our team sucked. we had been in last place for each of the 2002, 2003, and 2004 seasons. i don't remember our whole roster, but it included no-name starters like joe mcewing, ty wigginton, doug meintkeivich, miguel cairo, jay payton, and mo vaughn. the team was garbage, our pitching staff was worse. we had just traded scott kazmir to the rays for victor zambrano in the prior gm's reign. then minaya came.

Here is the audio from yesterday's Johan Santana press conference courtesy of WFAN.

Chalk one up for Omar Minaya. He as made the deal that many teams wanted to make in acquiring Johan Santana.

From The New York Times report:

"In exchange for Santana, the Mets are surrendering four young players: outfielder Carlos Gómez and pitchers Philip Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey. Each is considered a solid prospect but none are judged to be outright can’t-miss players."

I can live with that. There are a couple of more hurdles before the deal is finalized according to the Times' report.

"The trade hinges on Santana’s passing a physical exam and agreeing to a contract extension before a 72-hour window expires at 5 p.m. Friday."

Word is that Mr. Johan is looking to get $20-25 million per for 6 to 7 years. Ouch! No doubt Omar will have his work cut out for him in those negotiations.

Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports reports:

"They get a pitcher who immediately becomes the best left-hander in their history (sorry, Kooz, El Sid, it's not even close), who'll go back-to-back opening days at Shea Stadium and Citi Field, who'll stand on a mound in late September and stop dead the most horrifying losing streak they'd ever worn."

Santana turns 29 in March so he has at least six more prime seasons left. All in all its a very good move. Sorry to see Humber and Gomez go but the Mets needed someone to at least replace Tom Glavine. The Mets have done that and then some with this trade.

Today the Mets made a deal with the twins to bring Luis Castillo to New York. The Mets sent AA catcher Drew Butera and High A outfielder Dustin Martin. This will solve our second base problem for the time being and maybe the whole two slot in the lineup.