The 2010 Major League Baseball trade deadline is just over a month away with the deadline being its customary date of July 31st on a yearly basis.

Over the next month I will try and tackle every Major League team as the deadline approaches to see if they will be buyers, sellers or stick to their current roster.

I will be basing my assumptions on the direction the team is going, their record as of the date I post the article, possible roster injuries and so on and so forth.

I will provide the information about each team by division. I began yesterday with the National League East leading Atlanta Braves. Today I continue my look at the NL East with the second place New York Mets.

Coming into play today the Mets were owners of a 41-30 record, sitting half a game behind first place Atlanta.

The team has been under scrutiny for a long amount of time as the payroll and roster of the team under general manager Omar Minaya have not matched the end results, which saw the Mets finish a horrific twenty two games under .500 in 2009 with a record of 70-92.

The team decided to go against what everyone in the baseball world was asking them to do, which was obtain pitching in the off-season and nabbed highly touted outfielder Jason Bay, signing him to a lucrative deal worth $66 million over four years.

After a brutal escapade featuring star outfielder Carlos Beltran, who underwent surgery without permission from the club, the team was hopeful that they could rely on the returning Jose Reyes and team leader David Wright to pick up the slack for the absence of Beltran, while relying on a staff ace of Johan Santana and not much else in the starting rotation combined with a mediocre bullpen anchored by closer Francisco Rodriguez.

The team got off to a terrible start, as the city of New York was screaming for the heads of Minaya and manager Jerry Manuel.

With the two having their jobs on the line the team ridded themselves of the Mike Jacobs experiment at first base, calling up farm system star Ike Davis to man the position on a full-time basis. Davis has done an admirable job hitting .272 with 8HR & 31RBI in 213 at-bats and with the resurgence of Wright (.292, 12HR, 56RBI, 12SB), Reyes (.283, 6HR, 30RBI, 19SB) & the surprising play of Jeff Francoeur (.263, 7HR, 38RBI) & Angel Pagan (.302, 4HR, 35RBI, 14SB) the team is doing what the city of New York expects of them.

After playing one season at Citi Field the team determined that the ballpark was not a power hitting team’s kind of stadium and has turned things around offensively this season by adding more of a speed oriented type of play into their repertoire. The Mets lead the NL in stolen bases with 73 and are in the NL top ten in categories such as triples (20), doubles (126), runs scored (330), runs batted in (315), team batting average (.260) & hits (624).

The long ball is a thing of the past for the speed demon Mets; you could say it left when Citi Field was constructed and Carlos Delgado left town.

The Mets still have numerous holes that need to be filled with more of a permanent solution, rather than the bandage jobs they currently have in place.

The biggest of the holes has to be their starting rotation.

Johan Santana who has always been one of the best starting pitchers in baseball has not been as dominant as in years past, fashioning a 5-4 record with an earned run average of 3.31. The numbers are still great, but his velocity has decreased and he had to correct a situation earlier in the season where he was tipping pitches to his oppositions.

The Mets, as a whole, are surely thankful for Mike Pelfrey (9-2, 2.69ERA), who is having an All-Star caliber year and is currently the best pitcher the Mets have on their team.

After the top two the team is relying on a current rotation of Jon Niese (4-2, 4.17ERA) who has been solid for the team, but is still not proven at the Major League level, R.A Dickey (6-0, 2.33ERA), a knuckle ball throwing reliever turned starter who has never thrown more than 116.2 innings of work in his career and Japanese import Hisanori Takahashi (6-2, 3.13ERA), another reliever turned starter who is in his first Major League season.

Surely the Mets are getting by for now, but how long will it be before teams start to figure out the combination of Niese, Dickey & Takahashi?

Or will the three run out of gas as all are leaning toward pitching Major League career highs in innings already and the season is not even half way complete?

The Mets are in desperate need of starting pitching and even though they have internal candidates in Oliver Perez, Jenrry Mejia and the newly acquired Ramon Ortiz they surely cannot be the answers to the Mets rotation worries.

Perez has been a complete mess since signing a three year, $36 million deal prior to the 2009 season. Perez is 3-7 with an ERA over six and has only worked 104.2 innings for the team since the signing. Perez is currently on the 15-day disabled list with right knee tendinitis.

Mejia, who held his own in the Majors as a reliever (0-2, 3.25ERA in 30 appearances) has been sent down to the minors as they look to convert him into a starter and Ortiz is a minor league pickup who was recently released by the Los Angeles Dodgers after posting a 2010 record of 1-2 with an ERA of 6.30. Ortiz has not been useful in the Majors as a starter since 2006 with the Washington Nationals pitching 190.2 innings earning a record of 11-16 with an ERA of 5.57.

With the Mets desperate for starting pitching there are obviously two names on the trade market that come to mind.

Seattle Mariners pitcher Cliff Lee & Houston Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt are the top two available starting pitchers on the market and if the Mets remain in contention come the July 31st trade deadline they not only have the payroll, but will also have the demand for a top-tier pitcher such as Lee or Oswalt.

Oswalt may be too pricey for the Mets, as he is in the fourth year of a five year deal that owes him $15 million this season and $16 million in 2011 with a $16 million club option for 2012 with a $2 million buyout. Oswalt may also come as too much of an expense from a player standpoint as the Astros will obviously want numerous top end prospects in return for their franchise player, who the Mets would still control for one, possibly even two more seasons after 2010.

Lee is a safer bet for the Mets, although Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik is standing by his word that Lee will not be available until he witnesses his team fall completely out of the American League West race.

Lee is in the last year of a four year, $15 million deal that pays him a very affordable $5.75 million with an $8 million 2010 club option with a $1 million buyout. The former AL Cy Young award winner was traded from the Cleveland Indians to the Philadelphia Phillies last season and immediately aided them in their World Series attempt falling just short, having quite possibly the most dominant pitching postseason of 2009. A player of Lee’s caliber will help any team, but the addition of a pitcher who dominated the NL East as well as the NL playoff teams could be a huge difference maker in the Mets’ postseason hopes.

The Mets will surely have to give up a top tier player package headed by someone such as Jenrry Mejia, Ike Davis, Jon Niese or Fernando Martinez which would suck their farm system even dryer than it already is, but the chance of returning to the World Series for the first time since 2000, when they lost the subway series to the New York Yankees, may be worth the cost of such an act.

Will the Mets try and make a big splash come the trade deadline by acquiring a top end pitcher such as Cliff Lee or Roy Oswalt?

That is just another big question revolving around the NL East come July 31st 2010.

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