The fruits of our earlier labors:

On the Garza for Mejia and Flores thing: You’ll see in the video that I say, in a typically hedged way, that I’d probably do it. 70 percent of TedQuarters readers and conversations with a few Mets fans and non-Mets fans have me at least considering otherwise.

Y’all know I’m all about keeping the farm system intact and building from within. Thing is, both Mejia and Flores seem pretty far off from impacting the Major League team, and so much can happen between now and when (and if) they do.

Garza, like I say in the video, is hardly an ace, but he has proven he can stay healthy and throw 200 big-league innings, plus he’s under team control via arbitration through the 2013 season.

Still, I get that Flores and Mejia are the Mets’ two best prospects, and Mejia seems like the guy in the system most likely to develop into a legit ace. And I happen to like Flores for a variety of reasons, even if he’ll have to move from shortstop and everything else.

I would love to be able to poll a larger sample of non-Mets fans to see what they’d say. And like Matt suggests in the video, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the Rays might be able to get a more enticing package of prospects — with at least one that’s ready to contribute in the Majors — than the Mets’ top pair.