Beware, Mets fans: the team revealed Tuesday that David Wright will play the role of Santa Claus at next Tuesday’s holiday party, one of the club’s most popular annual charitable endeavors. But like an action shot on the cover of Sports Illustrated or an appointment to defend the dark arts at Hogwarts, it is not an honor to be taken lightly.

For the better part of the past decade, the position has quite obviously been cursed; any player who has pulled on the red-and-white suit has either left the team, been injured or suffered a serious decline in production thereafter.

– Anthony DiComo, MLB.com.

Obviously neither DiComo nor anyone else is taking the “Santa Claus Curse” all that seriously, but there’s a pretty reasonable explanation here:

The Mets apparently aren’t going to have a guy coming off a crappy season play Santa. John Maine and Mike Pelfrey both assumed the roles after career years, Francoeur earned it with 308 plate appearances far beyond his usual production. Somewhat predictably, all three regressed the following season. Pelfrey also suffered at the hands of a terrible defense behind him.

Benson’s case is unique, since his curse was only having a wife who thought it appropriate to show up to a children’s charity event wearing nearly nothing.

What happened to Mike Cameron probably makes the best argument for the existence of a curse, since it’s not often you see gruesome head-to-head collisions on a baseball field. But then, the Mets did ask Cameron to shift to a new position after the 2004 campaign.

And then there’s David Wright, who played Santa after 2006 and went on to have the best season of his career in 2007. Turns out legitimately excellent players are immune from the curse.

I am a bit disappointed that the Mets didn’t go with my recommendation.

I hoped to avoid the issue altogether but I’ve gotten a few emails about it so here goes: Apparently Mike Francesa is ripping the Mets on his radio show, raving about how they need to make a big splash this offseason or whatever, yelling about the whole ridiculous “small-market Sandy” thing.

This naturally irritates many rational Mets fans, since rational Mets fans know that for a variety of reasons none of the available big splashes seems to make a lot of sense for a team with a massive payroll that’s looking to become a sustainable winner. I could try to figure out Francesa’s motivation in ripping the Mets, work to decipher whether there’s some sort of grudge at play or if it has something to do with his medium or if he really just doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but really, who cares?

If you are bothered by what Mike Francesa has to say, I have an amazing solution: Stop listening to Mike Francesa.

I did it myself a few years ago; it’s great. Life is complicated enough on its own, we don’t need to opt in to situations we find stressful.

I happen to think his show is massively entertaining, which is why I listened to it with some frequency for a time and probably why so many people still pay attention even as it frustrates them. But at some point I found it difficult to rationalize the fact that someone working with all the same information I had could come to such massively different conclusions. And I realized I always had the option to listen to James Brown instead.

Subtlety and patience. In the overwrought world of New York baseball, the public is not conditioned to celebrate those qualities, particularly in the wintertime.

High-profile rumors and signings drive talk radio passion and sell newspapers, and the Mets have abstained during these winter meetings. In the process, they have begun to reveal just how radical (for New York) Sandy Alderson’s approach will be, as he tries to impose order on inherited chaos. While the Yankees and Red Sox chased Cliff Lee and Carl Crawford, and the Washington Nationals, of all teams, drove a truck full of money to Jayson Werth’s front door, Alderson this week signed reliever D.J. Carrasco, catcher Ronny Paulino and pitcher Boof Bonser.

– Andy Martino, N.Y. Daily News.

OK, here’s the disconnect here: To me, subtlety and patience are exciting. Sandy Alderson’s radical approach is, well, radical.

Big splashy offseason moves stopped being exciting once they started being both predictable and harmful. And certainly, they inspire passion. But often, that means passionate explanations about why the big splashy offseason move will ultimately hurt the Mets.

So Ronny Paulino, DJ Carrasco, Dusty Ryan, Boof Bonser and Brad Emaus don’t sell papers or make for entertaining talk radio. Who f#$@ing cares? That’s on the papers and talk radio for not figuring out how to drum up interest in some legitimately interesting moves, even if they’re not big names, big deals and big money. Write about the big picture. Focus on the economics. Figure something out.

And for what it’s worth, here at SNY.tv, our traffic is as good as its ever been. Our video streams — those goofy clips you see here with me sitting at the desk all unkempt and everything — have shot through the roof this offseason. I don’t think that’s all due to Sandy Alderson, but I certainly don’t think it’s all due to my boyish good looks and spectacular hair, either.

Seems to me like Alderson and his regime at the very least indicate a change in the way things are done around Flushing, and after all we’ve been through the last few seasons, change itself inspires plenty of enthusiasm.

And as far as I’m concerned, operating a team with the intent to sell papers and dominate talk-radio gaga will never, ever be as exciting as operating a team with the intent to win ballgames.

The Mets selected pitcher Pedro Beato and infielder Brad Emaus in the Major League portion of the Rule 5 Draft today.

A former first-round pick, Beato apparently throws hard, though he hasn’t struck out a whole lot of guys in the Minors. He pitched as a starter in the Orioles’ system without much success from 2006 to 2009, but flourished after a move to the Double-A bullpen in 2010. In 59 2/3 innings over 43 appearances, Beato enjoyed career bests in K:BB, WHIP and ERA. He should compete for a role in the Mets’ bullpen in Spring Training.

Beato was born on Oct. 27, 1986 — the same day as Jon Niese, and the last time the Mets won the World Series.

Emaus seems the more intriguing pickup. As Sam Page pointed out, Emaus is a favorite of Baseball Prospectus’ prospects expert Kevin Goldstein, who wrote that he “just plays the game right” after his 2008 campaign in High-A ball. Emaus took a step backwards in 2009, but returned to form with a strong .874 OPS across Double- and Triple-A in 2010. It should be noted that his Triple-A numbers were probably a bit inflated by the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, but his high walk rate and ability to make contact bode well for his future.

Emaus will be 25 on Opening Day. Goldstein said his ceiling was as a solid everyday second baseman, and he should have the opportunity to compete for that role come Spring Training. But as Toby Hyde pointed out, he has no experience playing shortstop and played more third base than second in 2010.

For more on both, check out Page at Amazin’ Avenue, and Toby and Michael Diaz at MetsMinorLeagueBlog.com.

Make no mistake: The most notable thing about Boof Bonser is that his name is “Boof Bonser.” Technically his name is John Paul Bonser, but that name sucks compared to Boof Bonser and so we will never refer to him as such again.

The second most notable thing about Boof Bonser is that he was once traded with Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano for A.J. Pierzynski.

The Boof was a pretty solid prospect for the Twins as recently as a few years ago, and enjoyed an unspectacular season and a half in Minnesota’s rotation in 2007 and the first half of 2008.

He was demoted to the bullpen for the second half of 2008, then spent all but one inning of the 2009 campaign recovering from labrum and rotator cuff surgery.

Bonser returned in 2010 and was pretty terrible both in Triple-A and in 25 spotty innings of relief work in the Majors.

The upside to Bonser’s 2010 season is that his fastball velocity was not far off where it was before his surgery, providing at least some hope he could bounce back. Of course, Bonser has never really been all that good in the pros, and reclaiming his 2007 form would not necessarily make him any better than Dillon Gee.

Still, since Bonser was once a prospect, showed promise early in his career and appears to be healthy at least for the time being, he’s a solid no-risk pickup on a Minor League deal for the Mets. At 29, he’s young enough that it’s still not too late to hope for some moderate resurgence, either out of the rotation or bullpen.

Also, he will be easy to root for, since his name is Boof. And as an added bonus, if he’s an optimist he might be able to convince himself he’s being vocally carried through his rough times whenever he’s booed mercilessly by the Citi crowd.

I was saying boo-oof.

Anyway, good topic of conversation came up in the office: Which baseball player has the best combination of awesome name and actual baseball skill? Oil Can Boyd is a more awesome name than Catfish Hunter, but Hunter was the better pitcher. How do you weight skill versus awesomeness of name when selecting baseball’s all-time best name guy. Should Bonser, Boyd and Hunter be docked points for using nicknames as compared to, say, our own Burleigh Grimes or Van Lingle Mungo?

I feel like Ronny Paulino has been “close” to signing with the Mets like 15 times before. Paulino has a rep as a solid defensive catcher and fared well in Beyond the Boxscore’s catcher-defense rankings. He is not a great hitter, though his career .273/.328/.383 line is pretty similar to the 2010 National League average for catchers — .253/.326/.388.

Perhaps most importantly, the righty-hitting Paulino has, for his career, a marked platoon split. He’s got a measly .635 OPS against righties but an .881 mark against lefties, essentially the Matt Diaz of catchers. Assuming he doesn’t cost multiple years or numerous millions, he would be a great choice to spell Josh Thole against tough southpaws, or even in a straight platoon — since catchers need time off anyway. Combined, they’d give the Mets excellent offense from behind the plate.

– Me, here, yesterday.

It turns out Paulino cost $1.3 million for one season, which seems a reasonable investment. Based on a quick survey of Cot’s, that seems around the going rate for free-agent backup catchers — Brian Schneider got about $2.8 million over two seasons last winter from the Phils, Miguel Olivo signed with the Rockies for $2 million for one season to back up Chris Iannetta (which didn’t end up happening).

Paulino gives the Mets essentially exactly what I hoped they’d find: a right-handed hitting backup and contingency plan for Josh Thole who is young and healthy enough to hold up for the long haul. There are questions about his work ethic and he’ll start the season on the last eight games of a 50-game suspension for PED use, but if it weren’t for all that he’d probably cost more.

Assuming he’s enjoying a happy, healthy and drug-free campaign in New York, Paulino will provide the Mets a good righty bat for tough lefties and a defensively solid backup catcher. And considering that Rod Barajas somehow got $3.25 million and Paulino is younger and probably better, it seems like a good deal for the Mets.