Mets Get Juan Uribe, Kelly Johnson from Braves

Late Friday night the Mets completed a trade for Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson from the Braves. Not a bad deal, but not one that will make the Mets a substantially better team.

Sandy Alderson deserves credit for getting two major leaguers for minor leaguers Rob Whalen and John Gant — two pitchers who likely did not figure into the Mets long term plans. Uribe can man third base until/if David Wright comes back. Daniel Murphy can move back to third and Wilmer Flores can slide over to shortstop, moving Ruben Tejada to the bench where he deserves. Thus far this season Uribe is batting .272 with eight home runs for the Dodgers and Braves.

Johnson is a decent backup infielder-outfielder who is batting .275 with nine homers this season.

They are both better than Danny Muno/Eric Campbell/KIrk Nieuwenhuis, two of whom will likely be sent away this weekend.

However, neither player is a game-changer who will carry the Mets to the post season. If this is just the prelude to a second, bigger trade, then great. But if this is it, go ahead and make October vacation plans.

And this could be it because the Mets will absorb around $3 million in salary between Uribe and Johnson. It is not clear how much more the Wilpons can tolerate. Frankly, we are all surprised they took on this much.

In any case, the Mets are a slightly better team than they were yesterday. Just not good enough. Yet.