Adding a five-time All-Star to the roster seems like a no-brainer as a recipe for success, certain to help a team get to another level. But for Mets manager Jerry Manuel, the expected addition of Carlos Beltran next week in San Francisco after the All-Star break comes with this potential backlash: How can he keep his entire outfield corps happy and productive?

“It will be a tough thing,” Manuel said about seamlessly integrating Beltran and divvying up playing time. “I think a lot will depend on them. It gets now to the point of you have to perform to kind of be out there. I think that’s where we are.

“We’ll sit down and talk with them and let them know what’s to come. We’ll try to map it out for them so they don’t come to the ballpark not knowing whether they’re going to play or not. I’m going to try to give them an advance schedule as to what I anticipate the lineup to be.”

– Adam Rubin, ESPN New York.

For a while it looked like Angel Pagan’s oblique injury might linger and render this entire conversation moot, but the 2010 Mets’ best outfielder has five hits including two doubles and a homer in his last two games, so it appears Pagan is healthy.

Mets fans have come to expect the worst from the team and its manager when decisions like this one come up. After all, it’s the same club that started Gary Matthews Jr. and Mike Jacobs on Opening Day.

But I’m going to take “you have to perform to kind of be out there” as a glimmer of hope.

This may be inconceivable to many Mets fans and beat reporters, but Jeff Francoeur should lose the most playing time when Carlos Beltran returns. It’s a no-doubter. Shouldn’t even be up for debate.

“You have to perform to kind of be out there,” like Jerry says, and Francoeur has not performed. Not at nearly the same level as Angel Pagan or even the long-befunked Jason Bay.

Francoeur himself said that Manuel’s decision should be difficult because none of the Mets’ current outfielders is “flat-out sucking.” That’s a relative term, I suppose. Francoeur is not flat-out sucking compared to how your average man on the street might suck if tossed into the rigors of Major League play. I could not post a .711 OPS at any level of professional baseball.

But every other starting Major League right fielder can better that rate, and that’s the issue. Among the men who man his position, Francoeur is dead last in OPS. He’s second to last in OBP, last in wOBA and third to last in WAR.

And why shouldn’t Francoeur, a Major League veteran, be given more leeway? Because these numbers are precisely in line with the ones he has posted across his career. This is Jeff Francoeur.

Flashes of awesomeness like the one he had to start the season or his three-week stretch starting in late May are nothing new; they were enough to enchant the Braves into giving him everyday playing time for four seasons. But Francoeur still hasn’t mastered the strike zone, so he is forever prone to the lengthy droughts that have hampered his 2010.

Angel Pagan has been great this season. Straight-up great. Jason Bay hasn’t been himself, but he has still performed a whole lot better than Francoeur. So — and the joke could very well be on me — I’m going to go ahead and assume that when Jerry Manuel speaks about “performance,” he also understands what that means. Pagan and Bay have far outperformed Francoeur. And Carlos Beltran is really, really good.

There should still be playing time for Frenchy, no doubt. With Fernando Tatis on the disabled list, the Mets will need a primary right-handed pinch-hitter. Plus Francoeur has always torched lefties, so he should spell Pagan against tougher ones. And Beltran will need plenty of rest days for his achy knee.

It just shouldn’t come down to an even split for Pagan and Francoeur or equal shares for everyone or anything like that. The Mets’ outfielders have not performed equally.