Welcome to Rumor Buy or Sell. The trade deadline is less than two weeks away now, so between now and then we'll pick apart the juiciest rumors and determine whether they pass the sniff test, or are just typical trade deadline noise.

Not so long ago, the Mets were reported to have lost interest in trading for Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy. Now, though, Fox's Ken Rosenthal tweets that the Queenslanders may once again be targeting one of the top deadline trade targets ...

So, to hear one of the best reporters in the business tell it, Lucroy-Mets is back on, but not imminent.

Background

The Mets, reigning NL champs, are of course in contending mode. At present, they're playing .525 ball and sitting two games out of wild-card position. While the SportsLine projection system gives the Mets just a 32 percent chance of making the playoffs, those are playable odds. They're contenders, which in turn makes them credible buyers in advance of the non-waiver deadline.

The Brewers, meantime, are very much sellers in the midst of a deep rebuild and right now are on pace for 91 losses. They also haven't hesitated to pawn off movable veterans, as in recent and semi-recent months the Brewers have traded away names like Carlos Gomez, Mike Fiers, Aaron Hill, Francisco Rodriguez, Aramis Ramirez, Adam Lind, Jean Segura and Khris Davis.

Moving Lucroy, despite his excellence and popularity, makes sense on those grounds. Lucroy is 30, and it's reasonable to ask whether he'll still be playing at a peak or even useful level by the time they're ready to contend again. However, he can very much help a team who's in the playoff mix right now.

Buy or sell?

Buy. The Mets this season have struggled to get production from the catcher position. Thus far, Mets backstops -- i.e., Travis d'Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki and Rene Rivera -- have combined to hit a woeful .219/.298/.314 on the year. By comparison, the average major-league catcher in 2016 has a slash line of .241/.308/.389. That's a significant deficit, especially in terms of power.

As well, the Mets trio has been at best a mixed bag defensively. Normally, you might wait out and hope d'Arnaud's bat comes around, but he hasn't hit thus far. He also has a long history of health problems, so he's not exactly a known quantity.

That brings us to Lucroy, who's a skilled pitch-framer and one of the best offensive catchers in baseball. This season, he's hitting .300/.361/.486 (124 OPS+) with 13 homers in 93 games. He has a 53-double season in his dossier (2014), and from 2012 to the present he has batted .292/.354/.460. That's to say, he has pretty much a half-decade of high-level production to his credit. Said production looks even better if you remove his injury-compromised 2015 from the calculus.

The Mets have a pronounced weakness, and Lucroy very directly addressed it. Worried about dropping a new catcher in late in the season and having him handle a young rotation? History suggests there's not much to worry about on that front.

There's also the matter of Lucroy's contract, which is team-friendly in the extreme. This season, he's owed the balance of a $4 million salary, and for 2017 there's a no-brainer $5.25 million club option. While the Wilpons have loosened the purse strings a bit post-pennant, they're still not spending money on a level commensurate with their market size. As such, Lucroy's outstanding value on the dollar should appeal to them on that basis.

That said, Lucroy is a top-tier player making well below market rates. That means he'll command a high return for the Brewers. The question would be whether the Mets could afford the price in terms of talent going the other way.

In favor of paying the going rates would be the fact that the upcoming free-agent class is a terribly weak one. Market solutions, particularly at the catcher position, are going to be hard to come by, which makes acquiring Lucroy through 2017 and giving yourself an exclusive negotiating window for an extension especially appealing.

From the Brewers' standpoint, moving Lucroy for a high return (two premium prospects/pre-arb talents is a good starting point for talks) makes sense. From the Mets' standpoint, he promises a massive upgrade at catcher and cost certainty through next season. Yep, we're buying it.