Far be it for me to believe everything I read in the newspaper, but something in John Harper’s piece in this morning’s Daily News caught my eye:

The explanation coming from the Mets last night, via a club source, is that they are focused on offense first, as they continue negotiations with [Bengie] Molina and outfielder Jason Bay. As such they aren’t ready to negotiate with pitchers until they know how much it costs to add bats.

The quote comes in reference to Jason Marquis’ signing a two-year, $15 million pact with the Nationals yesterday, despite his clear interest in playing in New York.

I don’t think Marquis is quite what he’s been hyped up to be, but $15 million over two years seems a reasonable price for a guy who, at the very least, can eat up innings in a frequently unhealthy rotation plagued by uncertainty.

There are plenty of other pitchers still on the market who are arguably just as good as Marquis, so it’s unfair to call him the One that Got Away or to criticize the Mets simply for their failure to lock him down at that rate.

But if the explanation Harper provides is correct, it speaks to a larger problem, and one I spent a whole lot of time whining about last offseason.

The Mets, presumably, are operating within some sort of budget. I have no idea what it is, but it’s safe to say they have a certain limited amount of dollars to spend on free-agent acquisitions this offseason.

That money should be spent improving the club in the most efficient way possible, and the most efficient way is certainly not keeping tunnel vision locked on Jason Bay and Bengie Molina and missing out on potential bargains elsewhere in the market.

Perhaps signing Marquis would mean the Mets, heaven forbid, would not have enough cash left over to lock down Bengie Molina. But even if the Mets have some good reason to believe Molina is worth a big contract, they must also realize that their team could stand to be better in a variety of places, including the starting rotation.

In other words, instead of going all-in for bats, the Mets should determine exactly how much they believe Bay and Molina are worth to their team and work from there. If those players are unwilling to sign for that much money, the team would be better suited finding more economical ways to improve, be it in the lineup or the starting rotation.

Last year, when Minaya was openly “not in the position-player market,” the Mets overspent on Oliver Perez. This year, when the Mets decidedly are in the position-player market, innings-eating starting pitchers could be available at a discount, and the team might be wise to scoop one up.

In other words, as I’ve said before, the position-player market and the starting-pitching market are really the same market: Players who could potentially help a team win. If position players appear too costly, a team is better off looking elsewhere.

Again, it’s impossible to rip Minaya at this point in the offseason, since he hasn’t made any big-ticket mistakes yet. Harper’s piece only suggests he could be going down that road.

Teams win with some combination of good pitching, good hitting and good defense. Precisely which combination doesn’t matter, so the best GMs are the ones who can identify the inefficiencies in the market and exploit them, rather than targeting one specific aspect of winning baseball and ignoring the rest.