Rob Neyer’s usually spot-on, but I think he misses the mark a bit in his remarks on Jeff Passan’s recent rip-job of the Mets’ front office. Neyer and Passan agree that the Jason Bay signing, to paraphrase Neyer’s headline “continues a disturbing pattern.”

If you read this site or my columns with any regularity, you know that I’m the first to criticize Minaya when he deserves it. In fact, I actually touched on a lot of the same themes Passan did in this column in August.

I’m certainly not out to excuse the club for refusing to spend above slot on draft picks. I still can’t, for the life of me, figure out what that’s about, unless it’s playing nice with the league in an effort to secure an All-Star Game at Citi Field.

But throwing money at Jason Bay, while perhaps shortsighted given the length of the deal, does not really do anything to hurt the Mets’ farm system. In fact, if there’s a year the Mets should be signing a Type A free agent, it’s this one, when their first-round draft pick is protected.

And citing Rubin’s work to rate the Mets’ farm system, as Neyer does, well, I don’t know. I’m skeptical. Organizational winning percentages are nice, I guess, but I don’t imagine they matter much, since it’s the performance of the prospects that matters more than the performance of the organizational guys who fill out most Minor League rosters.

The Mets’ Minor League rosters certainly lack depth. And they haven’t, under Minaya, produced a whole lot of top-flight Major League talent. Some warm bodies, for sure, but no All-Stars. That’s all true, and it’s certainly not good.

But for the first time in recent memory, the Mets now actually have a crop of intriguing prospects set for the higher levels of their farm system. Fernando Martinez, Ike Davis, Jonathon Niese and Josh Thole should all start the season in Triple-A. Brad Holt, Jenrry Mejia, Reese Havens and Kirk Nieuwenhuis should all start at Double-A Binghamton.

Granted, as a Mets fan, I’m probably overvaluing some of these guys. But all are still quite young and have performed well in the Minors, and so appear to have at least decent shots at becoming decent Major Leaguers.

And thus far this offseason, coming off an embarrassing 2009 campaign, Minaya has resisted the urge to trade any of them for a proven starting pitcher or an everyday catcher or a power-hitting first basemen.

I’d say, given the Mets’ history of quick fixes, that actually bucks the disturbing pattern.

Would I have signed Jason Bay to a four-year, $66 million deal with a vesting option? Probably not. Do I think he’ll help the Mets? Almost certainly. Would I choose him over Matt Holliday? Definitely not. Do I think his acquisition dooms them forever? Not at all.

The deal will probably hamstring the Mets financially down the road, especially since, in Minaya’s administration, they’ve had a whole, whole lot of problems grasping the concept of sunk cost.

But they have the advantage of playing in a huge market, so they can take one on the chin and recover if they can find cost-effective contributors elsewhere. And if they let their prospects develop into Major Leaguers, they’ll be doing just that.

Plus he’ll hit. It’s just not that disturbing.

With rumors swirling about the Mets’ pursuit of free-agent catcher Bengie Molina, I thought I’d touch base with my friend Dailey, a San Francisco Giants fan, for a very formal and professional interview. Dailey has a first name, I believe, but I am not entirely sure what it is, so I am crediting him here as “Dailey McDailey.” The interview follows:

TedQuarters: yo can I interview you?

Dailey McDailey: OK, what do I have to do?

TQ: answer my questions about Bengie Molina
via IM

DM: OK
His official nickname is Big Money, but I call him Snoopy Gut

TQ: OK, first off, are you, in fact, a San Francisco Giants fan?

DM: Yes
It would not be easy to kill me

TQ: is that so?

DM: Die Hardest
not even with a vengeance

TQ: wow, that’s for real
tell me about Bengie Molina

DM: He’s not good
He doesn’t make me want to not watch baseball any more (like, say, Barry Zito)
but he has an annoying proficiency at being put out.

TQ:: can you identify anything that he does well?

DM: I assume you mean on the field, so eating doesn’t count

TQ: yes, on the field

DM: I can identify things with which he’s CREDITED as doing well: call games, manage a staff, hit clutch home runs

TQ: are you certain that he does any of those things well?

DM: Not really. I will go out on a limb and say he does them all better than A.J. Pierzynski

TQ: Are you at all concerned that Tim Lincecum will completely suck next year when he’s pitching to Buster Posey or Sandoval or whoever?

DM: The only thing Tim Lincecum is going to suck is the end of a [tobacco] pipe.

TQ: Does Molina get punched in the face as well as A.J. Pierzynski?

DM: Probably better. Lots of face flesh to take the blow.

TQ: Who would you bet on in a footrace, Bengie Molina or continental drift?

DM: Bengie, because one of his footfalls would most likely push the continent backwards.

TQ: why do you call him Snoopy Gut?

DM: You know how snoopy has two skinny little legs and then a spherical body that hangs over them? That’s exactly what Bengie Molina looks like in his uniform.

TQ: That’s a good point
why do others call him Big Money?
and is that an alarming prophecy for Mets fans?

DM: Big because he is large, and Money because that is slang for clutch
Knowing the Mets, yes

TQ: BM are also his initials, you know

DM: Wow. That had escaped me.

TQ: I’ve got amazing powers of observation
As a Giants fan — and this part is important — not named Brian Sabean, would you recommend signing Bengie Molina to a multi-year free-agent contract?

DM: Absolutely not. Under no circumstances. No.

TQ:: Why not?
I thought he’s money
and big
and has a snoopy gut

DM: All these things are true. My #1 Bengie Molina memory from 2009 is him hitting a game tying home run in the 8th or 9th and waddling his large self around the bases.
However…
72% of the time he is asked to not make an out, he makes an out. And that is how you lose baseball games.

TQ: I’ve heard that
but he’s a great staff handler
and he’s so good with young pitchers, right?

DM: So they say, but can it be proven that the Giants’ stable of young, awesome, stallion-like arms would not thrive under the slimmer, less-money, more-gooder-hitting tutelage of a league average catcher? I say no.

TQ: Your logic befuddles me.

‘Tis the season for stupid headline puns. Mike Francesa broke news that the Mets agreed to a deal with Jason Bay yesterday, and now everyone’s weighing in.

I’d still really like to reserve judgment until we know more, though. Specifically: the terms of the deal. By all accounts, it’s worth about four years and in the neighborhood of $66 million. By some accounts, it’s backloaded. By most accounts, it’s got a vesting option for a fifth year that will bring it to about $80 million.

That’s the part I’m curious about, and I expect in the coming days we’ll get a much clearer picture as to exactly what that vesting options means. If it’s as easy as Joel Sherman suggests, then I’m not sure why the Daily News is showering Omar Minaya with praise for holding his ground on the four-year deal when that’s, well, not what that is.

I suspect part of the motivation for including the vesting option is just that — maintaining the perception of holding firm while actually compromising with the player — and so good for Minaya if his intention was to convince the Daily News that he was strong-willed.

If his intention was to build the best possible club for the years beyond 2010, though, I’m not so sure the vesting fifth year was the best idea. Nor is a backloaded contract, if that’s the case.

But I’m getting ahead of myself; I’ll whine about the terms of the contract when I know the terms of the contract.

What I know for certain is that Jason Bay is a terrific hitter. He was a terrific hitter in Pittsburgh, and he was a terrific hitter in Boston, and he will likely continue being a terrific hitter in Queens. He mashed pitching in the uber-competitive AL East and returning to the NL should be a relative cakewalk for him.

Sure, he was aided a bit by Fenway’s friendly confines and short left-field wall. But there’s evidence that Citi Field plays well for right-handed pull hitters, and the Mets put out word (through Francesa) that they had data that Bay’s power would play better at their home park than would that of fellow free agent Matt Holliday.

They had me at “data.”

He’s patient, befitting his reportedly quiet professional demeanor. In fact, as I Tweeted yesterday, Bay walked 20 more times last year than Daniel Murphy, Bengie Molina and Jeff Francoeur combined.

He does strike out a bunch, and he’s not a great defender. It’s tough to tell to what extent, since it’s tough to evaluate defense in general and especially tough to judge defense in Fenway Park, as Sam pointed out in the Amazin’ Avenue post I linked earlier. And at 31 and with knee trouble in his past, he’s probably not getting any better in the outfield.

The good news is the Mets have Carlos Beltran, and when he was healthy in 2008 and the Mets began haphazardly trotting out infielders with no outfield experience into their outfield corners, Beltran responded by making an obscene number of out-of-zone plays, clearly deciding that the chumps alongside him had no business catching fly balls when he could do it so much better.

It’s no safe bet Beltran will again be the defender he was in 2008, nor am I certain that his ability in center allows the Mets to sacrifice defense in left, but the combination of a rangy Beltran and a plodding Bay should at least inspire some aesthetically awesome running grabs from the graceful center fielder.

So that’s cool.

Wait, how did this post about Jason Bay become about Carlos Beltran?

Oh, because Carlos Beltran is awesome, that’s why. And now he has Jason Bay in the lineup to drive him in sometimes. So that’s cool, too.

I’ve already said my piece on Mike Pelfrey and the illusory nature of his supposed regression in 2009, but Howard Megdal passed out an interesting factoid via email that I figured I’d, in turn, pass along:

One of the actual knocks against Pelfrey from 2009 could be that his walk rate ticked up a tiny bit, from 2.87 BB/9 in 2008 to 3.22 BB/9 in 2009. Not a huge change and maybe not even a significant one, but not a good trend, for sure.

But as someone Howard corresponds with named Alan Topal (must give proper credit here on the Internet) points out, Pelfrey intentionally walked eight guys in 2009 after intentionally walking only one in 2008.

So Pelfrey’s unintentional walk rate held fast at 2/83 BB/9.

So that’s cool.