Shortly after the MLB All-Star game last night, the New York Mets traded closer Francisco Rodriguez and cash to Milwaukee for two players to be named later. 

By doing this, the Mets have essentially waived the white flag this season.

The Mets are 46-45 right now and 11 games behind Philadelphia in the NL East and 7½ behind Atlanta in the wild-card race.  Technically, they still aren’t out of the race. But without a bonafide closer they are. Who’s going to close now? Isringhausen? Parnell?

This move tells the fans, "Okay, we probably shouldn’t have signed Rodriguez to that 3-year, $37 million contract - that was a bad move".  The 29-year-old Rodriguez is 2-2 with a 3.16 ERA and 23 saves, a year after a fracas with a family member at Citi Field led to his arrest, an injury and the early end of his season.

This was a move only made to save the Mets money.

The payroll was way too high this year. The Mets don’t have any money.  They asked the MLB for $50 million and then had to get a minority owner to keep the team afloat.  

K-Rod has a vesting option for $17.5 million that is due to kick in at 55 games finished for 2012. Rodriguez currently is at 34 games finished.  They didn’t want to get locked into that salary next year.

Carlos Beltran is next and then Jose Reyes isn’t too far behind.  The Mets can talk about trying to resign Reyes, but if you were Jose Reyes, would you want to play for the Mets right now?

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Who’s going to play rightfield after they trade Beltran?  Scott Hairston and Willie Harris?  That’s better than Beltran?

This is the first sign the Wilpon's are going to sell the team.

Other than being on the verge of bankruptcy, funding the team with fraudulent money, advertisers pulling out, slumping television ratings, sagging attendance, the threat of the league taking over the team, poor play and bad management decisions….Other than all of that, this is the first real sign the Mets are ready to be sold!  

Do you need any other proof?  The new minority owner is a hedge fund dude that made hundreds of millions speculating on what the market was going to do.  He’s not making investments to lose money!!

Trading Rodriguez for no-names is first sign of a sale is trimming the fat.  Right now, the Mets are the obese kid in the class.  But they're getting ready to go on a big diet.

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