NEW YORK _ On Friday night Jacob deGrom delivered exactly the type of pitching brilliance to support what many Mets' fans were yelling at me via their digital devices that same day:
"You're crazy for wanting to trade this guy."
But here's the point a lot of folks missed, perhaps because they were dazed and confused and mad as hell, let's be honest at seeing deGrom and Noah Syndergaard pictured as Yankees on our Daily News back page:
If I were the Mets, I'd do everything possible not to trade deGrom and Syndergaard.
The problem is, without blue-chip talent coming from the farm system, the only way they can put a championship-caliber team around their two aces in the coming years is by cashing in on the rare chance to sign a free-agent superstar that hasn't even hit his prime yet.
Yep, Manny Machado or Bryce Harper.
I know, I know, it's a pipe dream, based on the way this franchise has operated for a decade now, apparently because of the fallout from the Bernie Madoff scandal.
However, that shouldn't be the case for a team in New York, and there was a time not so long ago, remember, when the Mets were big-game hunters with Omar Minaya as GM, going to the top of the market to sign the likes of Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez and Billy Wagner, as well as pulling something of a Giancarlo Stanton-like trade with the Marlins to get Carlos Delgado.
And they did go big for Yoenis Cespedes after the 2016 season, so it's not like they've tried to do it completely on the cheap even lately.
Yet GM Sandy Alderson did go bargain-hunting last winter, and the Mets have lowered expectations regarding payroll to the point where nobody in baseball believes they'll make a run at either Machado or Harper.
But without signing one of them, as well as a free-agent pitcher like Dallas Keuchel, Charlie Morton or Patrick Corbin, you can't convince me they have enough to win championships.
They need more starting pitching behind deGrom and Syndergaard, their bullpen is iffy, and even if Cespedes stays healthy and Michael Conforto finds his stroke, the Mets need more offense as well.
And that was the point of my column on Friday: if they want to be a team that can win 80-something games and hope for a wild-card berth, they can try to patch this together around deGrom and Syndergaard, but even that will get much tougher, considering how quickly the Braves and Phillies are emerging from their rebuilds to win with impressive young players.
And if winning a championship is the goal, which it should be, their best hope might be using deGrom and/or Syndergaard to acquire a potential nucleus of blue-chippers.
Unless the experts are wrong about the farm system, that is. Double-A first baseman Peter Alonso is offering some hope in that regard, hitting .355 with 11 home runs for Binghamton, yet the consensus among scouts and minor-league talent evaluators is that the Mets lack top prospects at the upper levels of their system.
Coming into the season, in fact, Baseball America ranked only one Met on its Top 100 list of prospects, and that was 19-year-old shortstop Andres Gimenez, who is playing in Class A St. Lucie.
No surprise, then, the same publication ranked the Mets' farm system No. 27 among the 30 organizations in baseball.
And this at a time when the sport is trending younger than ever, it seems, with so many players building around young stars in their early-to-mid 20s, while the Mets are relying heavily on position players in their 30s, which usually increases the likelihood of injuries.
OK, so if the Mets don't have young studs on the way, their only other avenue to winning big is by significantly raising the payroll.
I don't mean spending the way they did last winter, either, as Alderson took advantage of a buyers' market to sign the likes of Jay Bruce, Todd Frazier and Jason Vargas to what seemed to be bargain contracts as well as getting Adrian Gonzalez at minimum salary after he was released by the Braves.
All of them are in their 30s, and in an era when analytics are making teams more and more wary of over-30 players, that's the drawback of relying on free agency these days.
Machado and Harper, meanwhile, will both be 26 this winter, which is why each is expected to command deals of worth 10-12 years worth $350 million or more.
If that's unthinkable for the Mets, tell me how they're going to win big, even with deGrom and Syndergaard.
Personally, I'd hate to see deGrom, in particular, be dealt. He's as gutty as he is talented, as much fun to watch as any pitcher in baseball. Hey, I've picked the guy to win the NL Cy Young Award two years in a row now, believing he's that good.
But as I wrote Friday, the Mets are coming to a crossroads, especially as the competition in the NL East is ramping up quickly, where they'll have to do something bold to keep their championship window open.
I'm all for them spending big on Machado or Harper, rather than trading deGrom or Syndergaard at some point to kick off another rebuild. But I'll believe it when I see it.
