The back page of today’s Daily News features the headline, “GET A CLUE ON NO. 2” with a big picture of John Lackey and a small picture of Omar Minaya. In smaller font, it reads, “Harper: Mets need to realize they need big name like Lackey.”

Let’s go to the article!

Who exactly is the Mets’ No.2 starter?

The question is especially troubling because Mike Pelfrey took a major step backward last season, to the point where baseball people are whispering about him as a head case.

OK, first of all, about the whole “No. 2 starter” thing: That’s meaningless, you know. The only time the presence of a “true No. 2 starter” matters even a little bit is in the playoffs. The order of a team’s starting rotation does not matter.

It doesn’t. Think about it: Would you rather have a team with a “true No.1” and a “true No. 2” and three replacement-level starters, or a team with five pretty decent starters? I’ll take depth. I understand that labeling guys by their theoretical place in some non-existent rotation is convenient, but it’s pointless. Find me a team that has one “No. 1,” one “No. 2,” one “No. 3” one “No. 4” and one “No. 5.”

Harper continues on a long tangent about Mike Pelfrey and how he’s obviously crazy and terrible, but fails to mention — unsurprisingly — that there’s a good deal of evidence to suggest Pelfrey, a pitcher who relies on the players behind him, got a little bit lucky in 2008 and a lot bit unlucky in 2009. Sure, Pelfrey had his yips and balks and everything else, but who wouldn’t get anxious pitching in front of that defense?

Anyway, Harper knows “the Mets don’t seem willing to spend [the] kind of money” required to net Lackey even though “a tough-minded pitcher like Lackey almost cetainly would have a comforting effect on Peflrey, Maine and Perez” (obviously Johan Santana is not tough-minded enough), and despite the fact that “they were expected to meet with Lackey’s agent [at the Winter Meetings] last night.”

There’s plenty in the article I could pick apart, but it mostly boils down to Harper’s opinion that the Mets need a starting pitcher and so should sign Lackey. It’s hard to argue that, because the Mets do need a starting pitcher.

But it seems like a whole lot of people are hell-bent on this logic:

The Mets need a starting pitcher, and John Lackey is the best available starting pitcher, so the Mets need John Lackey.

And that’s just not how it works.

The object of baseball is to score more runs than the other team. You can attempt to do so by stockpiling the best pitchers, or the best hitters, or the best defenders, or, most likely, some combination thereof.

The Mets, dealing with finite resources, need to find the most efficient way to spend their offseason capital. John Lackey is a good pitcher, but at 31 and with some history of minor arm trouble, he’s probably not the best longterm investment.

And the Mets absolutely must consider the years beyond this one. Harper learned this less than two months ago.

Of course, a potential Lackey acquisition should depend, like everything else, on the cost. Maybe Lackey’s demands in dollars and years will drop and the Mets can scoop him up at a reasonable rate.

But rewarding Lackey simply for being the best pitcher in a weak class of free-agent pitchers is foolish, especially when there’s a chance several better pitchers — Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Brandon Webb, to name a few — could be available next offseason.

Update, Dec. 8:

You want lazy? This is lazy. I’m bumping this post, originally published on Nov. 11, because I feel the same way today and Mets fans keep going on about getting Roy Halladay:

Original post, Nov. 11, 2:04 p.m.:

In a subscriber-only post to Newsday that I am not able to read, Ken Davidoff compares the trade market for Roy Halladay with the one for Johan Santana before the 2008 season and explains that “the Mets believe they have at least a chance” to land the Blue Jays’ ace.

OK, here’s the thing: Roy Halladay is a stud. He’s thrown over 220 innings in each of the last four seasons, he strikes out a decent number of guys and he rarely walks anyone. Plus, he pitches in the uber-tough AL East, meaning he’s certainly been one of the three or four best pitchers in baseball over that time.

But Halladay’s situation is not exactly like Santana’s situation for a number of reasons.

For one, it’s important to remember that the Mets didn’t exactly trade four prospects for six seasons of Santana. They traded four prospects for the right to sign Santana to a six-year deal at market rate.

Given Santana’s excellence, it’s difficult to put a price tag on the exclusive negotiating rights the Mets acquired when they traded for him, but it’s reasonable to say the deal was a good one.

Still, as great as Santana is, he has already missed part of a season with an arm injury. And though all reports say Santana will return to full health, it’s not a safe bet he’ll stay that way through 2012 and 2013, when he’ll make a total of $49.5 million.

Theoretically, a deal for Halladay would either be a trade for one year of Halladay — he’s due to be a free agent after this season — or an arrangement like Santana’s, wherein the Mets would gain a negotiating window in which to sign Halladay.

And that’s where the situation differs massively from Santana’s. Halladay would certainly require a long-term deal, probably similar to the one Santana signed. But Halladay will be 33 in May, and Santana was about to turn 29 when the Mets locked him up.

Santana won’t be as old as Halladay until before the 2012 season, when he’s entering the final years of his contract with the Mets. Locking up Halladay for that long would mean committing big money to a pitcher while he’s in the back half of his 30s, and that’s a way, way riskier proposition.

Of course, Halladay hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down in the past couple of years. His average fastball velocity, according to Fangraphs, was actually higher than his career mark in 2009.

So maybe Halladay is the rare breed of dude who can remain effective deep into his 30s, and the Mets would be well-suited to lock him up for the long-term, even if it meant committing around $50 million a year to two starting pitchers.

Still, Halladay did miss nearly half the 2004 season with a shoulder injury, so it’s not like he’s impervious to pain.

Of course, analysis of any potential deal cannot be separated from the cost, and since we have no idea what it will take to land Halladay, it’s difficult to say for sure whether the Mets should or shouldn’t pursue him.

If the Blue Jays are randomly smitten with Anderson Hernandez and want to do a straight swap, well then, you know, yeah. But way more likely, any package strong enough to net Halladay would start with several of the Mets’ best remaining young players or prospects, further depleting an already shallow system.

And moreover, when the Mets dealt for Santana, they were coming off a season in which they missed the playoffs by a single game, so it was reasonable to assume Santana alone might push them over the edge.

This year, obviously, that is not the case. And though having Halladay would probably mean about eight more wins for the Mets than trotting Tim Redding out every fifth day, it’s unclear if he alone could make the difference between the 2009 Mets — even assuming full health — and a playoff team.

And that’s an important distinction, because by trading prospects for Halladay then signing him to a big contract, the Mets would likely be committing nearly all of their available offseason resources to a single 33-year-old pitcher.

That just doesn’t strike me as a good idea.

Adam Rubin provides a nice roundup of the issues facing the Mets at the Winter Meetings in this morning’s Daily News.

It’s a reasonable assessment of the Mets’ needs and what Omar Minaya is and should be doing. One sentence gave me pause, though:

While the Mets dither, Chone Figgins (not a power threat, but a left field candidate) is headed to Seattle. And Marlon Byrd soon will be off the board, too.

“Dithering,” as detailed by Dave Tomar in this Perpetual Post piece from not too long ago, became a popular word recently among critics of Barack Obama — most notably Dick Cheney — to describe his inaction in Afghanistan.

Rubin’s use of the verb could have been coincidental or tongue-in-cheek, but, given his very public history with Minaya, it’s certainly curious. “Dithering,” after all, connotes timid indecisiveness, and there’s no prior evidence presented in Rubin’s news article to suggest the team lacks a plan or is sitting around wondering what to while players like Figgins and Byrd fly off the board.

That could very well be the case, of course, but the Mets should absolutely not be criticized for allowing Figgins (at four years and $36 million) and Byrd get away. Neither is a perfect fit for the team — neither even really addresses the needs Rubin states in the feature — so the Mets were appropriately inactive.

Beyond that, there’s really no negative fallout from “dithering” at this point in the offseason. The Mets have until March to put together the best roster possible. And patience could be a good thing.

I’ve been in DC for some Georgetown basketball (a thrilling victory over imposing American University) and so out of the loop a little bit this weekend.

But one vague rumor that seems to be blowing up my Twitter involves a three-way deal between the Mets, Cubs, and Rays, with Luis Castillo going to Chicago, Milton Bradley going to the Rays, and Pat Burrell coming to the Mets.

All three teams would be parting ways with a bad contract, though it’s tough to say exactly how the salaries would play out as there could also be money involved.

That said, Castillo and Bradley are signed through 2011. Burrell is owed $9 million for 2010.

I assume, if there’s any actual truth to the rumor, the Mets would use Burrell as a part-time player. Inserting a bad defender coming off a terrible offensive season in the everyday lineup would be a P.R. nightmare for an administration reportedly on thin ice; more likely, Burrell becomes a right-handed platoon partner for Daniel Murphy at first base, plus (likely ineffective) leverage to try to drive prices down on free-agent outfielders.

Burrell was awful last year to the tune of a .221/.315/.367 line, but, just looking at his baseball-reference page, he appears a likely bounceback candidate: He’s 33, and he was a consistently excellent hitter from 2005-2008. He also has a .916 lifetime OPS against left-handers, meaning if he could handle first base defensively, he’d be a good for a platoon there.

Whether Burrell and his $9 million over one year are worth Castillo and his $12 million over two years, I can’t say. Castillo, as a second baseman, was a much, much more valuable player than Burrell last season, even with his own defensive inadequacies.

That’s no safe bet to continue, of course, and if the Mets are so desperate to move Castillo’s contract, they probably won’t find a deal appreciably better than this one. It turns out it’s a bear market for 34-year-old second basemen with diminishing range, bad knees, no power and multi-year contracts.

Of course, by most accounts the Mets are so desperate to move Castillo’s multi-year contract so they can give another one to Orlando Hudson, a 32-year-old second basemen with diminishing range, so, you know, there’s that.

OK, so we learned yesterday that several Major League teams are interested in Angel Pagan.

The White Sox, it has been reported, are looking for a center fielder and a leadoff hitter and would prefer to fill their offseason needs with trade acquisitions over free agents, since they can’t add much payroll.

The Mets, we know, need starting pitching depth and could look to fill that need via trade.

The White Sox, meanwhile, have Jake Peavy, Mark Buerhle, Gavin Floyd, John Danks and Freddy Garcia set to be in their rotation next year.

Beyond that, they have 26-year-old Carlos Torres, who started five ineffective games for their big-league club last season but dominated Triple-A.

I don’t think Torres is enough to get a deal done, even if the Mets severely undervalue Pagan due to his mental hiccups. So maybe the White Sox throw in a member of their reasonably deep bullpen, like, I don’t know, say D.J. Carrasco.

Carrasco fits the mold of former Mets’ bullpen targets in that his success appears to be unsustainable based on his high WHIP, plus he brings the Jorge Sosa factor of experience pitching in many different situations.

Is that a reasonable deal? Angel Pagan for Carlos Torres and D.J. Carrasco? I’m not asking if you’d do it — I wouldn’t — only if it seems like something that could happen.

And for kicks, I’ll put it this way, with appropriately vague language:

The White Sox are looking for an inexpensive center fielder and leadoff hitter and could be interested in Angel Pagan. The Mets would likely seek pitching depth in return, possibly in the form of Triple-A righty Carlos Torres and versatile reliever D.J. Carrasco.

OK, so I’m being a little hard on Henry Blanco. By all accounts, including Driveline Mechanics’ system for evaluating catcher defense, he’s a good defensive player. Plus, for whatever reason, he has posted his career best single-season OPS+ totals in the last two seasons (with limited at-bats, mind you) at ages 36 and 37.

Essentially, if you’re committed to signing a 38-year-old catcher, you could do a whole lot worse than Blanco.

In fact, if it was clear the Mets were signing Blanco as a defensive replacement, veteran mentor and occasional right-handed platoon partner for Josh Thole, I’d be all for it.

I recognize that Thole needs to improve defensively, but it’s not like he was terrible behind the plate in his limited time last year. And I’d guess, offhand, that Thole’s bat could at least play to the Major League average for catchers — a .254/.321/.396 line last year — while saving the Mets money to spend elsewhere.

But by all accounts, Blanco is not joining the Mets to caddy for Thole, he’s joining them to back up the free-agent catcher they ultimately sign — likely Bengie Molina.

So I apologize for misdirecting my hostility. It’s not Henry Blanco’s fault the Mets signed Henry Blanco, and Henry Blanco is probably still a decent backup catcher.

That’s all he is, though. He’s certainly not likely to get any better, and it continues to bother me that the Mets rarely seem committed to finding bench guys who might become more than that.

An e-mail in Marty Noble’s inbox this week went like this:

How could you pick John Franco over Armando Benitez as a closer? Franco petulantly ran Jeff Kent and Scott Kazmir out of town, undermined Valentine and Art Howe behind their backs and bad-mouthed Benitez to the local media. He also lost a staggering 56 games and never saved 40 games in any year as the Mets’ closer.

There are a few parts of this argument I fundamentally disagree with, but the whole thing mostly just makes me sad.

So many Mets fans, it seems, lack fond memories of John Franco.

But I loved John Franco when he was on the Mets. Loved him.

He had such a hilariously brazen mound presence. Here was this tiny little Italian dude standing on the mound, looking like a caricature of some shmo from my block on Long Island, throwing changeups over the plate and basically daring his much more imposing opponents to swing.

It somehow embodied the outer-borough aesthetic. Franco was a quintessential Met.

He was booed with some frequency, but that always made perfect sense to me. Made me like him more sometimes, even when I was participating in the booing. New Yorkers boo, and what better target than this other New Yorker.

John Franco got kicked out of John Franco day. I was there. He was honored in a pre-game ceremony, then got booted for his part in a bench-clearing brawl in the fifth inning. Classic.

Franco also, I firmly believe, is the person responsible for the “Lar-ry” chants used to tease Chipper Jones at Shea. I was at a game sitting in the last row of the Loge, right above the Mets dugout, and Franco was on the perch yapping back and forth with some fans. A fan asked what Chipper’s real name was, and Franco told him. A few weeks later, the chants started.

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but I like to credit Franco.

And now he’s mostly a punchline to Mets fans, probably due to some combination of his last couple of years in Queens and his rumored role in the Scott Kazmir trade.

Franco has since downplayed that talk, but even if he did recommend Kazmir’s departure, that really shouldn’t be on him. It’s not the lefty reliever’s job to make personnel decisions. Plus I’m certain he wasn’t the person who suggested trading Kazmir straight up for Victor Zambrano.

I’ve never heard John Franco linked to Jeff Kent’s trade before, but maybe Mets.com reader Tom C. from the Bronx knows something I don’t. Either way, I hated Kent when he was with the Mets, probably more than any other Met in my lifetime. I’ve made my opinion on Kent perfectly clear: The guy might be a Hall of Famer, but he will always suck to me.

So if John Franco ran Kent out of town, good. Sorry if it bothers Tom C. so much; I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the guy.

In a post to Twitter yesterday, I wrote:

The Mets are a train plowing inexorably toward Bengie Molina Station.

Today, first via email and then via Twitter, Howard Megdal responded:

In their defense, that’s mostly gravitational pull.

Howard is a friend and colleague, and has funny and interesting things to say about the Mets and many other subjects. You should follow him on Twitter.

I just got a call from someone at the Mets taking issue with my frequent criticism of the team for giving Cory Sullivan guaranteed Major League money, as that was apparently not the case. I was, to be honest, putting blind faith in the excellent Cot’s MLB Contracts site.

Sullivan’s was a split contract, meaning he was paid a different rate for time with the Minor League club, and the $600,000 rate was prorated for time spent on the big-league roster.

My bad.

Presumably, the call had something to do with my admittedly speculative column on Chris Coste yesterday, and I assume means Coste did, as Sam suggested in the comments section, receive a split contract.

So a mea culpa: The Mets will not be spending much money on Chris Coste if he’s not on the 25-man Major League roster. But I’ll maintain that they could have waited for the non-tender and Rule 5 pictures to clear up before committing a 40-man roster spot with Coste, and that they probably should be searching for catchers with more upside.

And maybe they are.

Anyway, it’s good to know someone’s reading.

FOX Sports’ MLB offseason blog says “a number of teams have shown interest in Angel Pagan,” but that “he isn’t close to being dealt.”

So, you know, who knows what that means? If I were running a Major League team, I’d show interest in Angel Pagan too. He had a very solid year, plays a good center field, and doesn’t appear to be in the mix for a starting job with the Mets next season.

What the report does say with certainty is that a source “insisted” the Mets don’t want Jose Guillen.

Phew.

That rumor, of course, came indirectly from Adam Rubin, who was careful to avoid saying that the Mets were interested in trading Pagan for Guillen. Instead he wrote that the Mets want a power bat for left field (duh), the Royals want to trade Guillen (no s@#!) and they’d be interested in Pagan (me too).

He posted a blog update a week later to insist that his reporting was legit, which it almost certainly was, since he didn’t really say anything groundbreaking. He added then, citing one of his favorite Dominican newspapers, that Guillen would approve a trade to the Mets.

Rubin didn’t link to the Diario Libre‘s website, and unless the article was about Taco Bell menu items or asking how to get to the library, I wouldn’t be able to read it anyway. But I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Guillen himself was reacting to the very rumors that were first printed in the Daily News.

And the wheels go round and round.