Expect to see the Mets’ top pitching prospect in Flushing next month: When rosters expand on Sept. 1, the team plans to recall 20-year-old righthander Jenrry Mejia, an organizational source told the Daily News.

Mejia’s role will be determined by the Mets’ position in the standings. If the team finds itself in wild-card contention, it will use the rookie as a late-inning reliever. If the Mets are buried and looking toward next season, they will put Mejia in the rotation to see how he fares in that role against major league lineups.

– Andy Martino, N.Y. Daily News.

Look: It’s pretty much immaterial because the Mets are not going to be in Wild Card contention come September. And that the team would even be considering that possibility and discussing it with the press speaks to its apparent disregard for reality. The Mets are currently 8.5 games out of the Wild Card with six teams ahead of them and an offense that has posted a .598 OPS since the All-Star Break. Probably not going to hack it.

But all that said, what the krod? Late-inning reliever? Really?

I mean… didn’t that just happen? Does no one remember two months ago, when the Mets still had their best pitching prospect toiling away in their bullpen, yielding too many baserunners to be trusted in tight spots? Does someone in the Mets’ front office actually think that the 27 1/3 Minor League innings he has pitched since then have fixed all that?

Because, well, wow. I mean, I’ll allow the possibility that the Mets’ company Web filters block baseball-reference.com, but my browser shows me that Mejia, in 20 1/3 innings in Double-A, has yielded a 1.33 WHIP. That’s a lot of baserunners.

He has been good, mind you, pitching to a 1.77 ERA and whiffing more than a batter an inning, but the traffic problem that mercifully dispatched him from the Major League roster in the first place hasn’t really gone anywhere.

Martino’s article says that some members of the Mets’ front office see Mejia’s future as a late-inning reliever, and I buy that. I don’t necessarily agree but I’ve read that before.

But there is absolutely no doubt that a top-flight starter is more valuable than even the very best relief pitcher, and so Mejia should be given every opportunity to succeed as a starter before he is transitioned into a bullpen role. At the very least, allowing him to work on his secondary arsenal over multiple-inning stints as a starter would make those pitches more effective if and when he needed them in relief.

The guy is 20 years old. 20. Twenty. 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20. And he’s the Mets’ best pitching prospect. Hell, now that Jon Niese has graduated to real-live pitcher, Mejia is really the Mets’ only pitching prospect to speak of at the higher levels of the Minors.

It’s like they’re putting all their eggs in one basket, and then vigorously shaking that basket.

In the Bronx last night, Joe Girardi saw an opportunity to pull Phil Hughes after only 84 pitches and took it to help work towards keeping Hughes to his proscribed 170-innings limit. Comparing Hughes and Mejia is not fair for a bunch of reasons, plus the Yankees haven’t exactly been perfect in their handling of young pitchers over the past few years.

But at least they have a plan. Mejia will, in all likelihood, throw fewer innings this year than he did last. Part of that is because he spent time on the Disabled List (though he did so in 2009 as well), part of that is because of the bullpen experiment that it seemed everyone in the world except the Mets’ front office and manager thought was a bad idea.

Rod Barajas is due to join the Mets tonight. And while no official move has been made, one report already indicates Fernando Martinez is the one headed to Triple-A Buffalo.

Whether or not that materializes, the mere fact the Mets will carry three catchers is absurd. It’s now essentially a 23-man team, because the third catcher probably sees as much action as Oliver Perez going forward, no?

– Adam Rubin, ESPN New York.

This. If Josh Thole loses even a minute of playing time in favor of Rod Barajas, I might protest the rest of the season or something.

In this way, Minaya is not much different from most general managers. Theo Epstein has won two titles with Boston and smartly built a perennial contender. But he has also signed Matt Clement, Julio Lugo and Mike Cameron while giving away Bronson Arroyo in a trade.

Similar examples abound all over: the Philadelphia Phillies’ former general manager, Pat Gillick, overvalued Adam Eaton; the Tampa Bay Rays’ Andrew Friedman blundered with Pat Burrell; the Yankees’ Brian Cashman sank $46 million into Kei Igawa….

But it would be sad, in a way, if Minaya is dismissed. He had nothing to do with so much of the mess at Citi Field, and he would probably leave the team in much better shape than most people realize — kind of like the Padres, who fired Towers at the end of last season and have discovered he was not so bad, after all.

– Tyler Kepner, N.Y. Times.

Look: It’s not like I’d root for anybody to lose his job. Omar Minaya is by all accounts a decent guy and everything. But sad? I don’t know. If he loses his job after this season, he’s going to get seven figures for the next two years to do jack. Hardly a tearjerker. I’m sure he’ll land on his feet.

And Kepner’s premise is pretty silly. Every GM makes mistakes, for sure. Cherry-picking certain ones and using them to argue that every GM is “not much different” is ridiculous. Minaya has made more big-ticket mistakes, and more egregious ones, than the men he is compared to in the article. That’s why it seems like he’ll lose his job. That’s why the Mets have a $126 million payroll and a .500 club.

That’s the thing. You want evidence of how Minaya is different from Epstein, Friedman, Cashman and Gillick? Which of those GMs will have teams in the playoffs this year? Which of them had teams in the playoffs last year? The year before? Which of them hasn’t had a team in the playoffs since 2006, despite consistently massive payrolls?

I vaguely agree with part of Kepner’s conclusion. I think the future is a bit sunnier than Mets fans can imagine it right now, because there are decent young players on the horizon and on the current roster. But Minaya’s tenure has been nothing like Towers’ in San Diego. Let’s not sugarcoat it — he has not made the most of the team’s payroll or roster, not now, not in 2006, not ever.

Dillon Gee had, on the surface, a shaky outing for the Buffalo Bisons last night, allowing four earned runs on nine hits — including a homer — over 5 1/3 innings.

But Gee struck out eight and walked one, and that’s kind of Dillon Gee’s thing. He’s got 144 strikeouts and only 34 walks in 145 innings in Triple-A this year. That’s an exceptional ratio. And he’s still only 24.

Problem is he’s got a 4.84 ERA on the season. Part of that probably comes from pitching in front of a defense filled up with Quadruple-A mashers doing right by the city of Buffalo and wrong by their pitching staffs, but part of it is probably because he gets hit pretty hard. Gee has allowed 155 hits and 19 homers in those 145 innings.

I was planning on writing more about Gee, but then I saw that Toby Hyde promised to write something about Gee today, so I’ll leave it at that. I’m interested in seeing what Toby has to say.

My point is this: I’d much rather see what Gee and his stellar peripherals could do at the Major League level for the rest of the season than watch the Mets trot out Pat Misch every fifth day.

Gee’s probably not great, but they can’t all be aces. Maybe after an audition against Major League hitting in front of a Major League defense, the Mets can slot him in as a back of the rotation guy for 2011.

Also, he’d be the single biggest boon to area headline writers since Jae Seo.