The Mets bringing back Kelly Johnson in a trade with the Braves is laugh out loud hilarious. In fact, I’m laughing at how ridiculous it is right now. Just sitting in my chair laughing it up. We give up minor league pitching assets to the same team in our division for the same mediocre bench player two years in a row?!? That’s so very Mets of us. The Mets do deserve some praise for realizing that their ship has been sinking as the Nationals steamliner forges full speed ahead. Sandy was as frustrated with that horrendous doubleheader as the fans were and addressed our non-existent roster depth the next day. Okay I have offered the appropriate amount of praise. Now let’s continue to criticize. The Mets and particularly Sandy deserve real criticism for being so shortsighted that they didn’t sign Kelly Johnson when they had the chance this spring. We had the need on our roster in February. And clearly if we are bringing him back now, we had the financial flexibility to take on his miniscule salary. The Mets passed on Johnson in favor of Eric Campbell. Ridiculous. Now for the second year in a row we give up a pitching prospect (this time Akeel Morris) to patch up our bench problems. Good thing pitching grows on trees in our organization.

Obviously cranky rant aside, the return of Kelly Johnson is big news. He’s a tremendous upgrade over what we currently have on the roster. He’s been god awful so far this season at the dish (.215/.273/.562) and he’s not really a good fielder at all, but he’s definitely better than Ty Kelly. He’s a net positive. He’s certainly not the straw that stirred the drink last year. But I fully expect the fan base to put that level of pressure on him as soon as he arrives. We are officially bringing the band back together. Now all we need is Daniel Murphy, Tyler Clippard and Juan Uribe and we should be all set. Oh wait what? They are major contributors on all their respective teams this year? Whoops!