Sometimes I actually think people are a little too hard on Bob Klapisch. He at least thinks differently than his hordes of mainstream media columnist brethren, and sometimes he stumbles upon an interesting idea. And I think it’s become sort of a knee-jerk reaction among Mets fans to assume everything he’s written is bad and dumb and too harsh against the Mets without giving it a fair shake.

Then he writes something like this.

Holy crap, Bob Klapisch. First of all, this is completely pointless. If the Mets were going to move in the fences, they’d be working on it by now, and they most certainly wouldn’t have said yesterday that they decidedly weren’t moving in the fences. So this column is useless.

Second, holy crap. I’m sorry but some things require the ol’ Fire Joe Morgan treatment. Here’s to heroes Ken Tremendous, dak and Junior. Bold words are Klapisch’s. Here we go:

Whatever you think about the $66 million the Mets have invested in Jason Bay – whether it could’ve been better spent on John Lackey or tucked away for a run at next year’s elite crop of free agents – this much is irrefutable: Home runs have become the most critical currency at Citi Field.

Is that irrefutable? I could refute that. Wait, I don’t know if I can. Hold on a second. I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying here, Bob Klapisch. Why are they the most critical currency? Because the Mets didn’t hit many? Other teams did. Other teams hit plenty. Everyone forgets that.

It’s a ambitious change in philosophy, considering the Mets hit the fewest HRs in the National League last year.

No, silly! It’s an ambitious change in philosophy. Plus, I’m not sure the Mets’ decision to hit the fewest home runs in the National League last year was a philosophical one. Actually, I’m pretty sure it had to do with everybody in the freaking lineup getting hurt. But whatever, let’s move on.

With Bay coming off a 36-homer season in Boston, Mets now have the potential to rival the Phillies in sheer muscle. That is, if Carlos Beltran can stay healthy all year, if Carlos Delgado returns and David Wright finds his 2008 stroke.

And we haven’t even mentioned Jeff Francoeur, who could bat as low as seventh in this power-laden lineup.

Wow. And guess what? If the Carloses Beltran and Delgado were healthy all last year and David Wright had his 2008 stroke — even without Bay in the lineup — the Mets would not have hit the fewest home runs in the National League. They’d actually probably have landed somewhere right in the middle of the pack, and so your whole premise would be shot, and so no one would need to be writing columns about bringing in the fences at Citi Field. That’s the whole thing.

But wait, here comes my favorite part:

The Mets don’t appear to be close to any significant up grades [sic] in their starting rotation, so if they want to improve their run-differential why not maximize their HR quotient by reconfiguring the ballpark?

Differential? Maximize? Quotient? Klapisch must be onto something smart here, right?

Oh, wait. He’s just using big words to shroud the dumbest f@#$ing thing I’ve ever read. Reconfiguring the ballpark around the same crappy pitchers will not alter the home run quotient. Reconfiguring the ballpark will only make those pitchers allow more home runs. Yes, the Mets will hit more home runs, too, but they’ll be yielding more at the same time, since they’ll be playing in the same ballpark as the other team, no matter how it’s configured. Unless Klapisch has some plan in mind for a radical newfangled wall that changes heights between the tops and bottoms of innings, the home run quotient will stay exactly the same.

And then, the kicker:

According to ESPN.com’s park factors that were released Tuesday, Citi was the major leagues’ seventh-easiest place to hit a triple in 2009.

Holy crap, sir. You found your way to ESPN.com’s park factors? While you were there, did you miss the part that showed Citi Field played as a slightly homer-friendly field in 2009? Or, worse, did you see it and think, “meh, it doesn’t really aid my point about how the Mets should move the fences in so they can hit more home runs like the Yankees and Phillies, so I’ll pretend I didn’t see it and cherry-pick this tidbit about the triples”?

I’m done here. There’s more fodder for comedy, but I’m bored with it.

Look: I don’t know the truth about whether Citi Field squashes home-run totals and I don’t purport to. I don’t think anybody does. It certainly looks big and it’s obviously earned that reputation. But there’s no evidence yet that it plays big, and everything we’ve learned so far says that it takes years to reach a definitive conclusion about a park’s effect on ballgames.

It’s baffling how many people think otherwise.

In addition to rolling out Jason Bay today, the Mets announced that they signed Russ Adams, Mike Cervenak and Mike Hessman to Minor League contracts and invited them to Spring Training, according to a press release that I actually got during the Bay news conference.

Hessman’s name, I believe, surfaced earlier this offseason. I hadn’t heard Adams’ or Cervenak’s thus far this year, but maybe I wasn’t listening closely enough, or something.

Hessman is a big, right-handed three-true-outcomes masher in the Val Pascucci mold, only probably not as good a hitter as Pascucci. Adams was actually the Blue Jays’ starting shortstop in 2005 but has been mostly a Triple-A second baseman for the past three seasons, and Cervenak could probably best be described as the Ty Wigginton of the International League.

What’s most interesting about the three acquisitions, I think, is that all three bring lengthy International League resumes to their (presumed) new club in Buffalo.

Check this out: In the past three years, Cervenak has played a total of 374 games in the International League. In the past four, Adams has played 404 games in the International League. And over the past eight years — eight seasons — Hessman has played 899 games in the International League.

That means that today, the Mets added 1677 games of International League experience.

I imagine this is part of that whole “do better by the city of Buffalo” effort they spoke to last summer, when the Bisons (yeah, it’s plural) were trotting out one of the most embarrassing clubs imaginable. And pretty clearly the Mets have determined that the city of Buffalo wants to see familiar International League heroes prowling Coca-Cola Field.

I mean, far be it for me to understand the mind of the Triple-A fan. But hey, Buffalo: I hope you like Mike Hessman, because that’s what you’re getting.

If you only read one article about Jason Bay, ever, let it be this one, by Mark Herrmann in Newsday. And if you can’t use your one free Newsday article per day or figure out a way around Newsday’s paywall to read this, I feel for you. It’s so amazing and Canadian.

Herrmann catches up with former Islander Ray Ferraro, who used to hang out with Bay’s mother’s sister in tiny Trail, British Columbia. Check it out:

Folks in Trail realize the value of earning your way. It is an earnest hardscrabble village less than 10 miles north of the U.S. border. People think nothing of working seven days a week in a family owned cement plant, as Ferraro’s father did. Or working at Teck Cominco, a zinc smelting firm that also handled gold mining. That is where Bay’s father Dave worked.

Readers of this blog know I usually have little patience for praise lavished upon players for their “blue-collar” mentalities, which is exactly what this piece does for Bay.

But what separates Bay from Alex Cora is the actual ability to play baseball, so that’s good, plus — and this must not be understated — once the verb “smelting” comes in to play, all bets are off. His father is a zinc smelter? That’s badass.

Jason Bay: Officially a blue-collar, badass, hockey-loving Canadian who’d probably be smelting zinc if he wasn’t playing Major League Baseball.