I’m hearing that the Mets could trade David Wright for prospects or pitching or a proven veteran leader or a big-time power threat or a dirty-uniform guy or some combination thereof.

The Mets have considered and will again consider dealing Wright, even though it is extremely unlikely that they do so. Nearly every other front office in baseball has internally discussed acquiring Wright, regardless of if they have the requisite pieces to pull off such a trade or the money with which to pay Wright’s salary or even the need for a third baseman.

And though Wright could void the 2013 club option in his contract if he is dealt — making him more valuable to the Mets than any acquiring team — there remains some chance the Mets will flip him to a potential contender looking for a one-year rental at third base if that team can return a package that Sandy Alderson believes is worth more to the Mets than Wright’s next two seasons.

The Mets are interested in re-signing Jose Reyes, but not if his demands exceed what they’re willing to pay. If the Mets sign Reyes, they might trade Wright to free up salary or keep Wright in an effort to compete sooner rather than later. If the Mets don’t sign Reyes, they will consider both trading Wright and not trading Wright.

For the Mets to trade Wright, they will need to find a willing trade partner offering one or more players that could contribute to their future more than Wright will, then hammer out the details and fill out a bunch of paperwork. Though it is possible all of that could happen this winter, it is improbable.

If the Mets retain Wright, they could also trade him during the season or keep him for the length of his contract or sign him to an extension.

The plan, according to Viola, is to have Leathersich be a starter in Class A ball next year. If he thrives, so much the better. But the Mets just want him to gain as much experience as possible by throwing the extra innings.

“We’re going to have him build up his arm, but I see him as a closer or set-up man somewhere down the line because he’s overpowering for short periods of time,” Viola said.

– Chaz Scoggins, Lowell Sun.

Via Amazin’ Avenue comes this solid read on lefty Jack Leathersich, the Mets’ fifth-round pick in 2011.

If you read this site with any regularity you know how dismissive I normally am of both far-off prospects and small sample sizes. And Toby tells me to never read too much into NY-Penn League stats, which I suppose makes sense: A lot of guys in that league are adjusting to wood bats and the rigors of life in the Minors for the first time. And even a full (short) season there is a pretty small sample.

So it is with several grains of salt that I note Leathersich’s ridiculous rate of 18.5 strikeouts per nine with only six hits and three walks allowed in the 12 2/3 innings he pitched for the Cyclones. That’s about as dominant a line as you’ll find anywhere in the professional ranks. Given the tiny sample, it could mean little to nothing, but it’s certainly better than, you know, not striking out more than more than half of the batters you face.

And it’s interesting that the Mets are going to stretch Leathersich out next year for reasons that make a ton of sense. If they want him polishing his full arsenal of pitches, he’s best served getting as many reps as possible. Plus, if he succeeds as a starter, then, you know, sweet.

Also, and most importantly: The guy’s name is Jack Leathersich.

I can practically promise you that no GM in baseball, given the option, would choose to run his team on a small budget, because is exceedingly hard to find and maintain a well-paying, high-profile job like Major League general manager if you are a crazy person.

Though spending tons of money on payroll and free-agent acquisitions may not always be the wisest way to build a winning baseball team, it is undoubtedly easier to construct a strong roster with the flexibility provided by a massive budget.

This offseason, like last offseason, Sandy Alderson will have to spend the limited resources he has at his disposal in the most efficient way he can figure. That has been the GM’s job since way before Moneyball — the book, the movie, or the events that inspired it.

That book tells an interesting story about the particular way that one particular general manager found to maximize his limited budget. Yes, Billy Beane sought players with high on-base percentages, but not because of the blinders-on SABR-worship people seem to believe he embodies. Beane wanted guys with high on-base percentages because that stat, he found, was at the time generally under-compensated relative to the extent to which it contributed to winning baseball.

That’s it. It’s not emblematic of “SABR <3 OBP” or anything like that. I’m sure if given the opportunity, Beane would have loved to sign players who also boasted high batting averages, played great defense and hit tons of home runs — any GM would. But he lacked the money with which to do so, so he identified an important component of winning that he could afford and pursued it.

Oh, whatever. I didn’t start writing this to summarize (and oversimplify) Moneyball. All I mean to say is this:

Common sense is not a dogma. Attempting to employ the best and most efficient practices to operate your baseball team means only that you’re a reasonable businessman, not any sort of zealot or brainwashed disciple of anyone or anything.

Stats and scouting are both just tools used by Major League front offices to evaluate baseball players. All teams use tools. All teams try to use the best tools at their disposal to identify players they believe will succeed. All teams have budgets.

No amount of finger-pointing and name-calling and talking-point regurgitating will make any of that untrue, and for every one or two or three examples of some specific way to build a successful baseball team there are as many counter-examples of successful baseball teams built some other way. The only indubitably true principle uniting the way all great teams are constructed is so obvious it’s laughable:

You want good players.

Preferably you want good, inexpensive players, so you can afford as many good players as possible. And you and I and Sandy Alderson might all have different ways to define what determines a good player, but the basic underlying truth is that you want players who will help you consistently score more runs than your opponent in some way or another. It’s really not rocket science.

It seems like this is coming up a lot lately, especially since the Moneyball movie came out. Instead of repeating myself more than I already do, I’m going to re-publish this post that originally ran on Nov. 1, 2010 — following Sandy Alderson’s introductory press conference.

A few years ago, I painted the interior walls of an apartment with a friend. Neither of us had ever endeavored a paint job of that magnitude before, but we figured it wasn’t exactly rocket science — tape the moldings, paint the walls.

The actual painting part wasn’t terrible, but taping all the edges turned out to be a huge pain in the ass. We spent at least as much time taping as we did painting, and the project took us about twice as long as we expected.

Just before we finished, the cable guy came. He complimented our paint job, and asked if we had taped up all the moldings. We said that we had, and he informed us to the existence of paint edgers, an inexpensive tool that paints the edges of walls without the need for all that tape.

We cursed ourselves for not doing more research and cursed fate (and probably Cablevision) for sending the cable guy so late in our process, but at no point did we curse the paint edger.

That’s why it’s a bit weird to me, as I sort through all the reactions to Sandy Alderson’s introductory press conference at Citi Field on Friday, that so many people seemed to get so riled up about sabermetrics.

For one thing, I don’t even know what “sabermetrics” means. I know it involves baseball and statistics, and I know that lots of people seem willing to speak or write on behalf of all so-called sabermetricians. But which stats define sabermetrics? It’s not batting average; we know that. Is it on-base percentage, or is that still too basic? It strikes me as strange that we should need a fancy term for those who recognize the merits of hitters that get on base often.

My understanding has always been that the numbers we throw under the umbrella of sabermetrics are those that aim to give us a more precise understanding of a player’s value than the so-called traditional ones on the back of a baseball card, and that “sabermetrics” itself refers to the pursuit of those more precise metrics.

The book Moneyball, contrary to widespread belief, was not just about sabermetrics. It was about a cash-strapped baseball team identifying an inefficiency in the market and taking advantage of it. Running a successful business.

So I get a bit confused when I see debate over when Alderson first started using sabermetrics, like he at some point flipped on a light switch to enact sabermetrics, and from there his team was a sabermetric team. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that. All stats are just tools, and every team uses stats, among other tools, to evaluate players.

That’s all. No real point in getting frustrated about it. Some teams use the tape and some teams use the edger, and probably most teams use both depending on the circumstances, and everyone’s got an opinion on which option works better. The point is there’s no real good reason to get upset and say, “f@#$ you, it’s tape!” or to be all, “yield to the dominance of the edger!” because it’s really silly to get so worked up over tools.

If you hope Sandy Alderson uses sabermetrics and Moneyball to run the Mets, then great. If you hope he doesn’t, that’s fine too. Both of those words are just big sweeping labels assigned to reasonably simple concepts, and if you want to use them or not use them to describe what Alderson does as Mets GM, you know, whatever.

All I care is that he seems dedicated to running the team the right way, and appears apt to do so.