Apparently everyone has left the Winter Meetings and is in transit, meaning all forms of baseball-related media have gone quiet except for Mike Francesa, who has seized the opportunity to declare that the Mets have offered a contract to Jason Bay.

I should note that I am not listening to Francesa’s show; I find it difficult and quite likely bad for my health, so all of this information is coming second and third hand.

Anyway, Francesa apparently says the Mets have offered Bay a contract because they prefer him to Matt Holliday based on charts they have that show his power will play better at Citi Field.

This has caused an immediate uproar on Twitter and in the blogosphere, and rightfully so; Holliday appears to be a better player than Bay overall, and a younger one.

While more reliable sources have since confirmed that the Mets have made an offer to Bay, it’s important to slow down a second: Keep in mind that there’s more than just straight player evaluation at work here, and so far Francesa is, as far as I know, the only journalist who has suggested the Mets prefer Bay to Holliday.

It could be that the Mets see Bay as potentially a better value than Holliday — a far less perplexing determination. Holliday, after all, is a Scott Boras client and the premiere free agent on the market and so will likely be expensive.

Of course, his price hasn’t been set yet — neither has Bay’s — and it’s difficult to trust any of the myriad rumors that have surfaced this offseason about the salaries players will command.

The commotion online strikes me more as the fallout from a fanbase grown entirely distrustful of its front office. We’re so certain that the Mets will screw something up this offseason that we’ll take Mike Francesa’s word as proof that they already have.

Meanwhile, it does appear that right-handed pull hitters succeed at Citi Field, and Bay is a lot more pull-heavy than Holliday.

That’s not to say he’s better, of course, but it seems a pointless exercise to destroy the Mets for a move they haven’t even made yet.

Besides, if we’re going to do that, the one to target is the Bengie Molina one. That guy’s no good.

Maybe I’m creating a strawman here, but I feel like there’s some sense of anxiety from Mets fans that the Winter Meetings will come and go and the team will have done nothing to improve its roster, and that’s somehow bad.

But it’s not.

If you read this space with any regularity, you know it’s far from my bag to defend Omar Minaya and his administration, but there’s no reason to rush into anything.

Think about it: Has there been any move made this offseason that’s made you say, oh wow, the Mets really missed out on that one?

Maybe signing Rich Harden for $7.5 million. But even that — for a near lock to get injured — seems far from a steal.

The rest? Would anyone have been thrilled if the Mets gave Randy Wolf three years and $30 million? Or four years and $36 mil for Chone Figgins? Multi-year deals for Brian Schneider or Ivan Rodriguez or Yorvit Torrealba? No thanks.

It seems like the dominant sentiment among Mets fans, based mostly on reports in the Daily News, is that the team isn’t going to spend enough money to compete for the big free agents on the markets. But the team keeps claiming it will, and it’s not like any of the big free agents have gone off the board below market rate without the Mets in on the bidding.

The Mets need to improve their roster by Opening Day, not by the end of the Winter Meetings. The Winter Meetings are a non-event. They may be full of sound and fury, but they signify nothing.

I know this is not something any Mets fan wants to hear, but be patient. It’s actually better that the front office be reading the market and reacting than going all-in and overspending.

The John Harper column I weighed in on yesterday is making its way around the Internet, and now everyone’s getting on board the Mike Pelfrey-is-a-headcase train.

Good lord.

OK, Mike Pelfrey does some weird things. He got the yips one night, he fell down while pitching on another, and one time, after a rough start, he blew off some steam by running laps of Coors Field.

Whatever.

The issue of whether Mike Pelfrey actually regressed in any significant way was addressed during the season by both Howard Megdal and Sam Page. I won’t go into any great detail, but read those pieces.

Basically, as a ground-ball pitcher Pelfrey relies on his defense. In 2008, he pitched in front of a decent defense. In 2009, he pitched in front of a terrible one.

Or, he succumbed to his obvious mental weakness.

Truth is, something did appear to go wrong for Pelfrey in the last month of the 2009 season. In his first 24 starts of the year, he allowed nine home runs in 140 2/3 innings. In his last seven, he allowed nine home runs in 43 2/3 innings.

Maybe his arm was tired, or maybe he made some sort of adjustment that didn’t work out so well, or maybe he really did get a touch anxious.

In any case, if the Mets can improve the defense behind Pelfrey, I wouldn’t bet on it continuing. Again, and for like the millionth time, professional athletes are professional athletes because they can triumph over mental hiccups.

Repeat after me: You do not make the Major Leagues if you are mentally weak.

You don’t.

Certainly, there are guys who’ve gone crazy, guys who’ve needed help, and guys who couldn’t be helped. There’s a mental aspect of the game, for sure.

But let’s not all pile on Pelfrey for a few on-field idiosyncrasies and an unlucky season. Remember that his weird mouth/tongue thing was just a lovable little quirk after 2008. Even up until midway through this season, everyone was certain John Maine was the second biggest headcase in the Mets’ rotation, not Pelfrey.

Check it out — I even joked about it in this column, which touched on a lot of the same topics as the blog post you’re reading now:

I’m confident that I know enough about baseball to analyze most of what the players do on the field. I’m not confident that I know enough about people to analyze what happens in their heads. Who am I to say that John Maine is a head case and Mike Pelfrey is not? Who is anybody? For all I know, Maine is just a guy who beats himself up after a bad day and Pelfrey is quietly a madman.

Look: Mike Pelfrey is the least of the Mets’ problems. He’s a 26-year-old pitcher who has managed to stay mostly healthy for two full Major League seasons. That alone is a valuable commodity, and combined with his 50 percent career groundball rate, makes Pelfrey a good bet to remain a solid part of a big-league rotation for the next several years.

Let’s not run him out of town for perceived mental weakness.