Arizona's Acquisition of Adam Dunn makes the Mets the team to beat in the NL East

A guest column by ESPN's Buster Olney

At the time of his trade, Adam Dunn had mashed 32 home runs. This tied him with Carlos Quentin of the Chicago White Sox of the American League for the Major League Lead. This is major news, because as any encyclopedia of baseball can tell you, no one who has ever led their league in home runs has ever been traded before. It's also interesting because Dunn is the first name player ever to be traded to the Diamondbacks, who play way out there in the NL South. When Arizona's not serving its purpose as the Yankees' farm system, they're playing through a futile attempt to hold off the amazing Dodgers and the incredible Manny, who has been Manny enough to lead the Dodgers to a record two games over .500. In the brief history of the division (2004), this is the highest winning percentage any team has ever had. I give Arizona a 0% chance of holding them off.

Now, let me tell you who the real winner between this trade of the Reds and Diamondbacks was. The New York Mets. The Mets, who entered play Tuesday at 62 - 56, sit a mere four games in front of Philadelphia for the NL East lead. The Mets have already finished their season series with Arizona, and I'm pretty sure the Phillies still have to play them - so the advantage here goes to the Mets. New York has also already finished their season series with the Reds, preventing anyone from claiming that the Mets' 9th straight division title was earned by beating teams that had already given up on the season. Thirdly, Arizona's a ridiculously small market. I don't know how they can possibly even have a baseball team, but they do. There's no way they'll be able to keep Adam Dunn for more than these two months - and at that point, the Mets will be able to sweep in and grab both Dunn and CC Sabathia of the Brewers, making sure that in 2009 we'll be able to see the league championship series that we all want: Red Sox - Yankees and Mets - Cubs. Those four clubs have more tradition than the other 26 combined, and quite frankly it's a crime that they're not the last four teams standing every year - but the trade of Adam Dunn to the Diamondbacks changes everything. This trade is the thing that puts the Mets over the top in the National League East.

This has been a special guest column by ESPN's very own Buster Olney