You already knew that the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants had agreed to exchange Carlos Beltran for pitching prospect Zack Wheeler. You already knew that Beltran had agreed to waive his no-trade clause to join the NL West leaders. That's everything, right? Deal was official? Wrong. The deal was not official. There was one last hurdle to clear:

MLB has cleared the Beltran paperwork. He becomes a Giant around noon ET today.

The paperwork! Thank goodness Major League Baseball didn't misplace the paperwork. And thank goodness nobody with a certain bias within Major League Baseball saw to it that the paperwork was destroyed. Perhaps somebody fond of the Braves or the Rangers. At the very least, that would've forced the Mets and Giants to go through everything all over again. And who knows, maybe one of the team's would've taken that chance to re-consider, and then what would we have? We would have chaos. Miserable chaos.

Beltran could be in the Giants' lineup as soon as Thursday night. He is expected to play right field, shortstop, and first base.