Remember Nick Evans? Yeah, don’t worry: few do. Least of all Major League managers.

It’s a shame though, because Evans can hit at least a little bit. And he can play a bunch of positions, and he’s still relatively young. But he’s the victim of a numbers crunch in Flushing: The Mets have a bunch of prospects they need to protect in the upcoming Rule 5 draft that they must feel offer more long-term upside than Evans, so they outrighted Evans to Buffalo to clear space on the 40-man roster, and Evans elected free agency.

Evans will catch on somewhere, and I suspect within a couple of years he’ll find his way into a regular Major League gig for part of a season and rack up 15 homers or so, then Mets fans everywhere will flip out, like, “never should of traided Nick Evans!” Then Evans will serve as a useful cog off some team’s bench for a few years, and then, of course, fade away as we all ultimately do.

None of that now appears likely to happen with the Mets, which seems too bad to those of us who came to root for the young man every time he got passed over for obvious opportunities by various managers. But decent-hitting right-handed corner-bat types aren’t terribly difficult to replace, so losing Evans to free agency hardly cripples the Mets’ future.

The Mets have signed Vinny Rottino and Valentino Pascucci to minor league deals, sources told ESPNNewYork.com.

– Adam Rubin, ESPN New York.

And Vinny Rottino, for good measure. Bensonhurst is abuzz tonight!

I’ve been remiss in noting that the Mostly Mets Podcast (one of which should roll out at some point this afternoon) now has a call-in line. Except you don’t actually talk to us. You leave a message, then we play it on the show and respond. Sorry to screen your calls like that, it’s just, we’ve got this ex, and… well, it’s a long story.

Anyway, here’s what you do:

* Call us at 347-915-METS / (347-915-6387).
* Listen to Patrick reading* a welcome message.
* After the beep, say your name, where you’re from, and then ask your question for the show.
* Hang up.

Also, has anyone yet identified the guys with the bananas in the photo above? They must be on the Internet somewhere.

Lastly, I’m kind of busy today. Sorry about the general slowness.

*- Patrick, is this true? Did you write the message down and read it, or did you go from memory? Either way it sounds very professional. A lot like my dad’s office answering-machine message actually.

Apparently the Mets will indeed tender contracts to Mike Pelfrey and Angel Pagan, so that ends that nonsense. I mean, I guess I should hold off on the celebrating until it happens officially, but it makes so much sense for the moves to happen — as it always has — that it doesn’t seem likely the story will change.

The joke is really on me, then, for spending so much time and energy explaining why the Mets should tender contracts to Pelfrey and Pagan (and maybe on you for reading/fretting) when most likely that was always going to be the case, and when any suggestions to the contrary may have been media-driven storylines-for-the-sake-of-storylines written to fill internet space and sell papers by people covering a team facing basically one major compelling offseason roster decision. And since no one knows where Jose Reyes will end up, and since writing the same damn thing about Reyes every day gets old, attention turns elsewhere.

The only other familiar, biggish names that could be ousted under any broad umbrella of twisted logic were Pelfrey and Pagan, so we read tons of stories of the way the team had soured on the pair and were likely looking for inexpensive upgrades that plainly did not (and still do not) exist.

But of course, maybe that’s just my narrative, and maybe there really was something to all those stories and the Mets just changed their minds. Or maybe — and most likely — there’s plenty of gray area.

The most important thing is that the Mets’ front office is doing the logical thing. It doesn’t really matter how the decision played out in the media as long as the correct one is made in the end. But the lesson, I think, is that moving forward it’s best to view with skepticism any pending illogical decisions being attributed to the team’s clearly reasonable decision-makers.

Really, what else is new?

Cerrone is on the scene.

Too many people are guessing, theorizing, and pontificating as to what is going on. The agents for Reyes and most of the teams interested in him (including the Mets) have not leaked much information and that has people grasping for things. And to generate stories, people are taking leaps of faith. The biggest was those was on Sunday when it was leaked by one member of the media that a Reyes deal with the Marlins was done except for some minor details. PLEASE STOP THE INSANITY!

For example, some people suggest that Hanley Ramirez has been asked to switch positions — others contend he has not. Some says it is a slam dunk he will move anywhere — even center field. The only thing I can tell you is Hanley Ramirez said as recently as Friday,”I am the shortstop right now.”

– Rich Coutinho, WFAN.com.

All requisite hot-stove snark aside for a second, what percentage of baseball’s offseason rumors would you say are legitimately attached to actual front-office proceedings? I don’t mean nebulous “discussings” or “coulds” or “considerings.” I mean the real stuff — trade proposals, free-agent offers, things like that. Those can’t account for more than, what, 30 percent of the rumors, right?

And then think about how often a deal goes down that you hadn’t heard rumored at all. What percentage of the things that are actually happening do you think the things that are reported to be happening represent? I bet it’s not much. Maybe 20 percent, tops.

So even though there are decent reporters out there doing good work in the hot-stove season, it’s easy — perhaps even sensible — to get overwhelmed and frustrated with the glut of unsubstantiated nonsense, especially when there’s so little reward for sifting through the crap to find the real news.

To me it seems like the most productive use of offseason time is to avoid all speculative information and to instead just wait until deals actually get done and decide what I think about them then.

Something else to consider: When you see anonymously sourced hot-stove news credited to a team source, what’s in it for the team source? Why are we reading so many reports about the Marlins’ wooing free agents and so few about every other team? Are the Marlins really the only team pursuing free agents, or are they the only team very invested in having you know that they’re pursuing free agents?