Will Jeff Francoeur provide the Mets with some much needed pop? (PHOTO COURTESY OF SI)

BY MATTHEW FALKENBURY
ASSISTANT EDITOR

Well, that was a nice little 5 seconds of hope when watching Sportscenter this evening and heard these three phrases, Breaking News, Mets and Trade all uttered in one sentence.

Of course in what is normal for the Omar Minaya led New York Mets, a small high is then followed by a big letdown. Today the Mets and Atlanta Braves, bitter enemies, made a deal for two guys who have been stamped with the word disappointment.

Ryan Church and his two month run that had people thinking of what might have been after his concussion in Atlanta, is headed back as Jeff Francouer is making the trip to Queens to take over in Right Field.

Church is hitting .280 with two home runs and 22 RBIs at the time of the deal, while Francoeur is hitting .250 with five homers and 35 RBI’s.

When you look at this trade, I think it can be easily said that the only thing that makes these players different from one another is that Francoeur is a younger player by six years and we may actually gain a little bit in defense when you think about just how good Francoeur’s arm really is.

This trade seems to be one where Omar called Braves GM Fran Wren and said to him, we’ll take your problem off your hands, if you take ours and since yours is younger, we’ll throw in some cash as well (I figured Madoff had it all, go figure).

I had always liked Ryan Church and thought last year when he had for the first time a chance to start everyday, that he would prove himself and he did for two months, until May 21st. That of course is the day that in a loss to the Braves, he had Yunel Escobar knee him in the head and pretty much ruin any chance he had to be a productive Met.

It is very ironic that in the same place that his Mets career was pretty much ended, is where he will be restarting his career again, this time wearing a Braves uniform. Of course, I would loathe for this to be true, but Church used to always hit the Mets well when he was in Washington and I will not be surprised if he does the same, now that he is in Atlanta, a place where im sure he will fit in, as I think he hates the Mets as much as the other players in the Brave Clubhouse.

As for Jeff Francoeur, the Mets fans need to calm down when it comes to thinking this trade is as bad as some fans out there think it is. The kid is 25 years old and does have some good power and is a gap to gap hitter. Yes we all know about the lack of walks, but with the lack of power these days, walks are not exactly the thing the Mets need more of, they need more the other guys walking to be running home on a regular basis.

All in All, I think that this trade is a mixed bag, very much like the original Church deal that sent Lastings Milledge to Washington, we all hated that deal thinking we could have had gotten more for Lastings, until we realized that we actually won that deal hands down.

I’m very sure that judging this trade about an hour after it went down wont do any good for Mets fans, we need to wait and see and hope that youth will be served and that what SI called the Natural during his rookie season hits lights out for this year and many more to come.

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