Got The Setup Man I Was Hoping For!

From Ken Rosenthal's Foxsports.com blog from the baseball winter meetings:


UPDATED 11:12 p.m. — Done deal: Mets acquire Putz

The Mets have acquired a setup man for new closer Francisco Rodriguez — and that setup man is another closer from the American League West.

J.J. Putz is headed to New York in a three-team trade with the Mariners and Indians, according to major-league sources.

Under terms of the deal, the Mets get Putz, outfielder Jeremy Reed and reliever Sean Green from Seattle. The Mariners receive reliever Aaron Heilman, outfielder Endy Chavez and first baseman Mike Carp from the Mets. They also get Franklin Gutierrez from the Indians and minor leaguers. The Indians get reliever Joe Smith from the Mets and infielder Luis Valbuena from Seattle.

From the Mets' perspective, the deal is Heilman and Smith for Putz. Chavez and Reed are simply an exchange of backup outfielders; Smith and Green are an exchange of right-handed groundball specialists.