OK, so we’ve got the details: The Mets have traded Brian Stokes to the Angels for Gary Matthews Jr. and $21.5 million of the $23.5 million remaining on the two years left on his contract.

So it’s Brian Stokes for the right to have Gary Matthews Jr. on the team at the massively discounted rate of $2 million over two years.

Whoop-dee-doo.

The good news is that Angel Pagan hasn’t gone anywhere, and theoretically he will still have every opportunity to establish himself as the club’s starting center fielder until Carlos Beltran returns from injury. And Pagan should do that, because he’s a much better player, at this point, than Matthews.

The Mets needed someone to back up Pagan, and so they went out and got a player who, in their eyes, has proven he can play center field at the Major League level.

And that’s the issue here: Gary Matthews Jr. has spent the last three seasons proving that he cannot play center field at the Major League level.

Both UZR and plus/minus say Matthews has been a significantly below average defensive outfielder since joining the Angels in 2007.

Of course the talent evaluators the Mets employ apparently disagree with those imperfect but valuable tools, and here’s hoping they’re right.

Because other than some vague reputation for good defense, Matthews doesn’t bring a whole lot to the table. He had a nice year at the plate in 2006 — earning him a giant contract — but has been a bad hitter since, rocking a .708 OPS in his time with the Angels.

You might even say he’s been below replacement level. And the Mets just went out and traded something to get him.

And that’s the issue here.

Not that Stokes was any great shakes. For whatever reason, he was overrated by some Mets fans — this one included — simply because it appeared Jerry Manuel entirely forgot he existed for stretches of the 2009 season. But Stokes was probably lucky to have a sub-4.00 ERA in 2009 with his high 1.564 WHIP, and he never had overly impressive peripheral stats.

Still, as a hard-throwing relief pitcher who posted 108 ERA+ in 103 2/3 innings over two seasons with the Mets, Stokes was something of value. And they just traded something of value for something of arguably no value, since Matthews has done little over the past three years to show that he’s any better than the readily available replacement.

Make no mistake: This is a deal of a seventh reliever for a fifth outfielder. That’s nothing. This means very little in the grand scheme of things.

But it’s frustrating and a little frightening because it shows, once again, how the Mets seem to judge talent in a way that departs so severely from the stats they should now have at their disposal, then overpay to acquire that talent.

Mike Puma reports in today’s New York Post that the Mets could pursue Fernando Tatis if they decide not to sign Carlos Delgado.

Cool. I’ve been singing Tatis’ praises this offseason; he’s been a versatile and productive player for the Mets, and I could get on board with his return.

The article says that Tatis’ double-play groundouts last season are more notable than his other stats, but I would argue — and have argued — that they were merely a weird, flukish run of terrible luck.

What is funny, though, is that the story says “the team could look to Tatis for a platoon with Daniel Murphy.”

That’s well and good, and I guess since Tatis has a career .808 OPS against lefties, he’d represent an upgrade over Daniel Murphy when opposing southpaws are on the hill.

But interestingly enough, Tatis doesn’t really demonstrate a huge platoon split — he has a career .782 OPS against righties. Ryan Garko, whose career .792 OPS only barely trumps Tatis’ .790, demonstrates a much more severe split: He has an .887 lifetime figure against lefties against a .755 OPS versus righties.

If Garko’s looking for significantly more money than Tatis, it’s probably not worth rewarding him for the slight upgrade offensively against left-handers, given how infrequently teams really face lefties anyway plus Tatis’ defensive flexibility. Plus, if the Mets value Tatis’ versatility and hope to exploit it, he’s worth pursuing over Garko.

But if they’re exclusively looking for the platoon bat to pair with Murphy, Garko’s the–

Holy crap, apparently the Mets have just landed Gary Matthews Jr. I’m assuming this is bad, but I’m going to cut off this Fernando Tatis/Ryan Garko post right here while I find out more.

I just ran into a smart dude and good Mets fan who told me he thought the team should pursue Jon Garland, and definitely not Ben Sheets. He said they needed more certainty in the rotation, given how shaky things were after Johan Santana, and that Sheets did nothing to shore anything up.

That’s hard to argue with, but I did. Here’s why:

Jon Garland is just OK. He’s one of the most reliable bets in the Major Leagues to pitch 200 innings, and that’s definitely worth something. But they won’t be 200 great innings, or even 200 very good innings. They’ll just be 200 innings.

I think Garland would be a great guy to have around if the Mets knew they were going to get healthy seasons out of Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes and a productive one out of David Wright. Garland is the type of pitcher who can win games for a good offense, but probably not the type of pitcher who can win games on his own.

Ben Sheets, when he’s right, is precisely that type of pitcher. Sheets is coming off elbow surgery and hasn’t pitched since 2008 and so represents a pretty sizable risk. But he pitched like an ace in 2008 and the potential reward is much larger than anything Garland could offer.

Garland is the safer move, sure. But the Mets, as currently constructed, shouldn’t be making the safer move. With the Phillies, Braves and, to a lesser extent, the Marlins all poised to contend in the NL East in 2010, the Mets’ best shot at a playoff run is to take big bets on upside and hope they pay off.

Sure, it’d be nice if that weren’t the case, and the Mets had a roster full of sure things and just needed a steady back-of-the-rotation innings-eater like Garland to complete the package.

But the Mets, instead, have question marks basically everywhere.

Plus, as I’ve written before, they could probably scrap together something similar to the 200 decent Major League innings Garland would provide from a combination of Nelson Figueroa, Fernando Nieve and Jon Niese. One minor benefit to 2009 was that it forced the Mets to accumulate some much-needed depth.

What they likely won’t get from that group, though, is the type of dominance Sheets might provide. And they wouldn’t get that from Garland, either.

Obviously money is a big factor, and rumors earlier this offseason said Garland wanted to stay on the West Coast and Sheets wanted to go to Texas, so this could be an entirely pointless blog post. Plus if Sheets wants an Oliver Perez contract, then, well, screw it.

That’s all I’ve got.

Nick Piecoro at AZCentral.com reports that there’s nothing new on the Chris Snyder front, but I wanted to discuss it a little further.

I mentioned Luis Castillo in my post yesterday, but I was mostly kidding (hence the reference to fingers and toes being crossed, and the rare use of the double question mark). But when Mets fans consider their favorite team taking on another team’s unwanted salary, they instinctively hope Castillo can somehow be pawned off in the deal.

But though the money and years owed to Castillo and Snyder are actually quite similar — Castillo is owed $12 million through 2011 and Snyder $10.5 plus a $750,000 buyout, so $11.25 million total — there’s a huge, huge difference in their contracts. It’s this:

If Snyder is healthy and playing the way he did in 2007 and 2008, he is a bargain at that rate. If Castillo is healthy and playing the way he did in 2009, he is still overpaid.

So think about it this way: Snyder, especially to a team without a catcher, offers a ton of upside, despite the injury-related risk. Castillo, to the Diamondbacks, offers the possibility he’ll play like Luis Castillo. And lest we forget, he still brings a fair share of injury-related risk, too.

Plus, if the Diamondbacks believe Snyder will return to full strength after back surgery, it could behoove them to hold off on trading him and wait to see if Miguel Montero continues his success. Then, if he does, Snyder could be dealt during the season, once he’s proven his health and his value has risen.

Also, it would seem strange for Arizona to deal Snyder, presumably to free up payroll, only to take on more payroll in Castillo. Plus they’ve already added one shaky-fielding second baseman this offseason in Kelly Johnson.

Piecoro offers a great rundown of the Diamondbacks’ potential motivation to trade or not trade Snyder, and I recommend reading it. It’s always important to keep in mind that two teams need to sign off on deals. I forget too often myself.

Everytime I hear Mets assistant GM John Ricco’s name, I think of the following NOFX song, from one of my favorite albums ever, Punk in Drublic.

And I realized that there’s a whole lot about this song and the Mets’ current situation that seems to fit, really.

Things we never tried to disallow
have come back to haunt us now