They were in fourth place, 7 ¹/u2082 games out of a wild card, yet desperate to believe they were in it and to convince their fan base to keep coming to games. So the Mets made a win-now move and sacrificed their best lefty pitching prospect.
This was late July 2004 and the Mets tried to have a win-now, win-later — try to win the press conference — trade deadline. So they obtained Kris Benson, Victor Zambrano and a few years of their control and, most notably, undersold lefty Scott Kazmir to the Rays in the trades. It all proved regrettable.