As mentioned earlier, the Mets traded Lastings Milledge for OF Ryan Church and C Brian Schneider.

An interesting side note is that this is the 2nd time Omar Minaya has traded for Ryan Church. According to baseball-reference.com Church was traded along with Maicer Izturis to the Montreal Expos for RHP Scott Stewart. This of course, was when Omar was GM of the Expos.

Well, Omar certainly seems to like Church. The guy has good power to the gaps, and should benefit from leaving RFK. He only had 15 HRs in 144 games last year but did manage to hit 43 doubles. In addition to that, Schneider is a relatively cheap defensive stud.

WFAN is reporting an official trade that that is sending Lastings Milledge to the Washinton Nationals for OF Ryan Chruch and C Brian Schnieder.

According to Mike and The Mad Dog, during a tour of Citifield today Mets ownership informed them of the trade.

In 2007, Church hit .272 with 15 HR and 70 RBIs and Schnieder hit .235 with 6 HR and 54 RBIs. Both players had OBP over .300.

I agree with M and MD, I’m sure the Mets must have made the calls and realized that Milledge wasn’t going to get them a pitcher. THey have a better shot with Gomez. I will post the press release link when it is available.

UPDATE: 1:16pm

SNY.tv has confirmed the trade.

 UPDATE: 2:38pm

Mets.com had this to say…

Here is a recap of some Mets Hot Stove rumors from Jon Heyman’s latest article on SI.com: