The Winter Meetings are here, and with them all the requisite nonsense and Twitter fuss and speculation ranging from reasonable to ridiculous.

Mets fans, understandably, seem pretty geared up for a trade, since the team needs to improve to compete any time in the short- or long-term future and because it does not appear as if the front office has a lot of flexibility to throw around money at free agents. The players the Mets are targeting, at least according to the early rumors, are outfielders and catchers. They need both, no doubt, but the needs are not equal.

Outside of his ability to catch R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball, Josh Thole stunk after his concussion in early May of 2012. Upon returning from the disabled list on June 1, Thole hit a measly .217/.273/.263, and his .257 wOBA for the year ranked him dead last among Major League catchers with at least 300 plate appearances. For the season, he walked slightly less and struck out slightly more than he did in 2010 and 2011, and he somehow hit for even less power. It was an awful year for Thole at the plate.

But Thole’s 26, he’s under team control for the next four seasons, he hits left-handed and his history shows he’s not nearly as bad an offensive player as he was in 2012. It’s impossible to say the extent to which his concussion impacted his abilities at the plate, but far better hitters than Thole have struggled offensively after head injuries. And given the stark difference between the modest standard Thole set in his first two seasons versus the miserable numbers he posted this year, it seems reasonable to guess that his woes were at least partly due to the aftereffects of that injury. Thole actually seems like a guy we might be targeting as a buy-low option if he spent his terrible 2012 with any other team.

There’s no guarantee Thole bounces back to his 2010-2011 form, and even if he does he’s hardly Mike Piazza at the plate. But given his age, his contract status and the injury, he seems potentially too useful to give up on in favor of a player who would only make for a mild upgrade.

J.P. Arencibia, frequently linked to the Mets in early trade rumors, is merely a mild upgrade. He hits for way more power, but his production is mitigated by his inability to get on base with any frequency. His 88 career OPS+ is only a tick higher than Thole’s 85, and his .275 career on-base percentage is about exactly the same as Thole’s post-injury mark in 2012. And he’s not much of a defender.

Arencibia will be 27 in January, so he could still improve a bit — though so could Thole. Plus he hits right-handed and he won’t be eligible for free agency until after 2016. If he were practically free, or a part of a larger trade package, he’d make a decent right-handed complement to Thole in a platoon. But since he hasn’t hit lefties as well as free-agents Kelly Shoppach, Chris Snyder, Ronny Paulino or even Bobby Wilson, none of whom seems likely to command a whole ton of money, Arencibia hardly seems worth targeting in a trade unless he lands in the Mets’ laps.

Arencibia’s Minor League history should also sound a small warning about the Blue Jays’ more coveted young catcher, Travis d’Arnaud. d’Arnaud moved through the Minors at a younger age than Arencibia and typically posted more promising walk rates. But though d’Arnaud’s .333/.380/.595 line as a 23-year-old at Triple-A Las Vegas looks enticing to a Mets fan dreaming of an All-Star catcher, it’s not far off from the .301/.359/626 marks Arencibia posted in Vegas as a 24-year-old in 2010. d’Arnaud carries a better reputation in prospect circles than Arencibia ever did, and, again, he’s younger and far more likely to emerge as a Major League star, so worth way more in a trade than Arencibia. But he’s far from a guarantee to immediately succeed in the Majors. Sometimes what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Moreover, the Mets need outfielders more than they need a catcher. Right now, their best two-way outfielder is either Kirk Nieuwenhuis or Mike Baxter. That duo has about a full season’s worth of Major League plate appearances between them. Lucas Duda has more, but his ability to stay in the outfield should be considered questionable at best. All three of them hit left-handed, as does Jordany Valdespin. Their best righty-hitting in-house outfielder, again, is either Juan Lagares or Cory Vaughn, neither of whom appears ready to play in the Majors by Opening Day 2013.

It could be that outfielders will be easier to come by on the scrap heap, so much so to justify trading for a catcher. But the outfield needs to be the team’s priority this offseason, and it’s not all that close. As hard as this may be to believe, the Mets are better off hoping Thole bounces back and starting the season with him and Anthony Recker than starting all three of Baxter, Nieuwenhuis and Duda in the outfield with no righty-hitting hedge.

I don’t know, dude. $138 million may sound like a lot of money, but you should see Ike Davis’ bar tabs. But presumably Murphy’s bachelor party will be at a batting cage, so Wright should be able to afford the rental, the pizza, and the party hats.

Can I say no one? Going with no one. They’re never going to top Roy Hibbert’s, and with the Mets’ luck the attempt would end with a career-threatening ankle injury.

Hmm… I’d put them like:

1) Santana trade
2) Piazza trade
3) Hampton trade
4) Wright extension
5) Piazza extension

Though they were certainly nice, both extensions seemed more or less inevitable, so they don’t match the trades for excitement. My enthusiasm for the Hampton trade was mitigated by my how psyched I was for Roger Cedeno, hard as that may now be to believe. When the Mets traded for Piazza, I thought it was cool but decidedly uncool to Todd Hundley, who had been about the second best hitting catcher in the league the prior two years and a favorite of mine. Obviously I didn’t know then how much I would come to love Piazza.

The Santana trade came in my third week working at SNY, so it was a pretty exciting time for me personally, and an especially exciting time for me for the Mets to trade for the best pitcher in baseball. The extension negotiations actually happened inside this office in a conference room upstairs. I mentioned this before but it’s kind of a funny story:

I will say, though, that there’s one minor scoop for which I am directly responsible and have never been credited. I was the anonymous source that fed Matt Cerrone the details of the Johan Santana contract.

It went like this: I got word that Santana, his agents and the Mets’ front office were negotiating his contract in the SNY offices because of their accessible Midtown location. I work in said offices, and figured out which conference room they were in (it wasn’t hard -— it’s the fancy one).

The workday was winding down as the negotiations were starting, and I had nothing particularly important to do that evening, so I went upstairs and parked myself at the receptionist’s desk outside the conference room. I considered doing the old sitcom cup-on-the-door thing. I IMmed Cerrone when they got dinner delivered.

I sat there for a while, browsing the Internet and waiting for something to happen. I was just about to give up when a dude — a young guy, must have been someone who worked for the agent or something -— emerged from the conference room on his cell phone.

“It’s done, dude,” he said. Then he paused.

He continued: “Six. Yeah, six and 137-point-five.”

Ideally, a lot of them. One frustrating thing you see bandied about pretty frequently is that “(Player X) is not a contributor on a championship team.” And if you look at championship teams, it’s so silly. The 2012 Giants used Ryan Theriot as a DH in the World Series. The Tigers gave tons of at-bats to Delmon Young, Brennan Boesch, Ramon Santiago and Ryan Raburn.

Every single guy on the Mets could be part of their next real good team. The guys who play infield all look more likely to be integral parts of that team than the guys who play outfield, but all the outfielders appear apt to be fine in part-time roles, so I wouldn’t even count any of them out yet.

The more important question, obviously, is who’s not on the team that’ll be part of the next real good Mets team. And that beats me. Who they are and where they come from will determine which of the current guys stick around when the club gets good.

People get frustrated with the Mets and David Wright is the most recognizable Met, so people transfer their frustration with the Mets to David Wright. I’m pretty sure that’s it. Same reason everyone blames quarterbacks for struggling NFL teams, same reason the Boston press blamed Ted Williams for the Red Sox never winning, etc.

Other than that, it makes no sense: Wright seems like exactly the type of dirty-uniform gamer many fans would love if he sucked, wearing his heart on his sleeve and playing through pain and generally being upbeat and cool about everything. It’s like he gets penalized for being awesome and handsome.

https://twitter.com/jeffpaternostro/status/274524698778419200

That, or the Abe Lincoln look that prompted Jose Reyes to say, “Don’t worry, we’ll find the man who did this to you.”

Murphy’s subtly become a shifty facial hair guy for the Mets, but we don’t talk about it much because it’s only like the seventh or eighth most notable thing about Daniel Murphy.

https://twitter.com/Met20/status/274529339582844928

Gee doesn’t have nearly the value on the trade market that Niese does. Niese has been better for longer, for one thing, he’s slightly younger, he has been healthier, he throws left-handed, and he’s signed to a very team-friendly longterm deal. All the reports on Gee’s recovery sound promising, but as Toby Hyde pointed out, blood clots have jeopardized pitchers’ careers in the past.

Yes, but the right kind of weird.

I don’t think the Royals would trade Wil Myers for Jon Niese, but — and like I’ll say on the podcast — the Royals are the team supposedly open to trading Wil Myers, who hit 37 home runs as a 21-year-old in Double-A and Triple-A last season, even though one of its outfielders is Jeff Francoeur. So if there’s anything to this, the Mets should jump on that deal.

Niese is a good young pitcher signed to a very team-friendly contract. But he’s a pitcher, which means he’s no lock to stay healthy, and he’s yet to throw more than 200 innings in a season.

Myers hit so well in the Minors last year that his Major League equivalency line — .260/.320/.469 with 27 homers if you include his stats at both levels — would have made him arguably the second best hitter on the big-league Mets in 2012. That’s not saying much, sure, but it speaks to how badly the Mets could use more offense. And Myers is a right-handed hitting outfielder with power, which is the main thing the Mets need.

By my best guess, if Myers plays even average defense in an outfield corner, he would have been roughly as valuable to the Mets in 2012 as Niese was, and Myers is still at the age at which players can be expected to improve pretty rapidly.

Typically I’m skeptical of going all-in on prospects who have yet to perform at the big-league level, but Myers seems about as safe a bet as any, given his precocious production and his reputation. If the Royals are so desperate for affordable pitching that they’d trade him for Niese, then, you know, do it. But 74 percent of you already feel that way, so I realize I’m preaching to the choir.

I’ve got a podcast to record and a meeting immediately after, so here’s a poll. I’ve got an opinion but I’m not going to share it.