That’s a really good question, and one I obviously can’t answer definitively. For tomorrow’s Baseball Show, I talked with Peter Gammons about the Mets’ approach to the trading deadline and he made several interesting points. I don’t want to scoop that here, but I’ll say this: He noted that no team last year took on as much money as Beltran stands to make after the deadline this year.

That obviously doesn’t mean Beltran is immovable, especially given the season he’s having. But how many teams in contention that need an extra bat in the outfield (or at DH) have the financial flexibility to take on Beltran’s contract? Plus remember that Beltran’s contract includes both a no-trade clause and a clause saying he can’t be offered arbitration after the season, meaning it could be harder to work out a deal and any acquiring team doesn’t stand to get draft picks when he leaves.

This could be wishful thinking on my part, imagining a scenario wherein the Mets determine they’re best off keeping Beltran around for the asses he’ll help put in seats for the remainder of the season. Or they could take on some of his contract and try to get a better return. But that doesn’t really answer the question.

Last year the Yankees gave up Mark Melancon and Minor Leaguer Jimmy Paredes for Lance Berkman. It’s not a perfect comp for a variety of reasons: Beltran is more valuable in the field but comes with greater injury risk and Berkman was in the midst of a down year by his standards. But maybe that’s a reasonable expectation: A potentially useful young arm and a marginal-at-best prospect? Or am I being too pessimistic? I’ll admit I suck at this.

As for Rodriguez: Gammons sounded pretty optimistic about the Mets’ ability to trade him, even despite all the money he’s owed. I’ll leave the haul part of it to him. You’ll have to tune in tomorrow for that. CLIFFHANGER!

So we’re looking for a surprisingly good sandwich that’s still not great, with a couple of exceptional elements but a couple that are holding it back. OK… off the top of my head:

The Mets are a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread with spicy mustard, with a single slice of incredibly flavorful imported prosciutto on there. Obviously the prosciutto here is Jose Reyes. Oh, and the cheese is really good too — a fine Havarti, we’ll call that Beltran.

The ham is a fine, thin-sliced Boar’s Head deli ham. That’s the rest of the lineup. It’s getting the job done but it’s not overwhelmingly awesome. The white bread is the pitching staff, and it’s doing the best it can with what it has and no offense to white bread but man, this sandwich would be better if it were on something other than plain old white bread.

The spicy mustard is Terry Collins. That strikes me as appropriate for some reason. Like all sandwiches, this would be better with bacon, or David Wright.

In truth, probably Madden. But that’s a boring answer, especially since I still play Madden today (BTW, the lockout did not seem to impact the undefeated 2011-12 Jets in my franchise mode).

I always played more sports games than anything else, so I’m going to give some love to Micro-League Baseball on the Commodore 64 — the nerdiest game ever invented. It was basically Moneyball before Moneyball; you didn’t even play the games yourself, you just put a bunch of stats into the computer and then let the computer play them out for you. But I created teams of me and my friends and pitted them against the 1927 Yankees and such. Ah yes, “my friends.” I swear.

How many people go on a roast dais? None of these people know me so they wouldn’t have anything funny to say about me, but if I’m picking I guess I should just pick the people I think are funniest since I’m going to be sitting there anyway so I might as well enjoy some good standup: Dave Chappelle, Louis CK, Jake Johannsen, Mike Birbiglia, David Cross, Norm MacDonald and Stephen Colbert.