I’ve been through this several times before. One more time:

David Wright’s contract with the Mets includes a $16 million team option for 2013. This option belongs only to the Mets. If Wright were to be traded, the acquiring team would enjoy only one full season of his services under the terms of his current contract.

That means the Mets would be trading two years of David Wright to a team that would only get one year of David Wright. With bold text:

Mets trade: Two years of David Wright.

Team X receives: One year of David Wright.

Again: Team X, here, would have to trade enough to make the Mets willing to give up two years of Wright’s services, but for that, Team X would only get Wright for one season.

Is that clear? Because it strikes me as important, and almost no one brings it up when discussing whether the Mets should or will trade Wright.

Given the nature of Wright’s contract, the only way a deal between the Mets and Team X makes sense is if the clubs differ greatly in how they value the players involved.

If the Mets believe Wright is not worth $31 million over the next two seasons, they can deal him and free up payroll to spend elsewhere. If they think Wright is an unclutch loser, and if at board meetings Mets executives throw around sophisticated analysis like, “he is part of the problem, not part of the solution,” they can trade him for the sake of trading him and relish a fresh start with (presumably) inferior ballplayers.

None of that seems likely. And moving Wright now, coming off a season riddled by injury following two a touch below the superstar standard he established from 2005-2008, represents dealing him at the nadir of his value.

I imagine this is an utterly useless blog post, as most people bothering to read it already understand the various reasons the Mets should not and likely will not trade David Wright, and anyone who believes the Mets should trade Wright will argue he’s not worth the $31 million through 2013 anyway and they should get what they can for him now.

If you need me I’ll be over here, shouting to myself.

Here’s this week’s Mostly Mets Podcast. It’s also on iTunes here.

You’ll note that after the first 40 minutes or so, there’s a distinct lack of me.

What happened was this: I went on a rant about the 2008 Mets that elevated the very form of podcasting to the realm of high art. It was so beautiful that Toby started weeping uncontrollably and his tears flooded his keyboard and shorted his computer. He didn’t realize we were no longer recording until after my sermon had swollen to its exquisite, revelatory climax and I passed out from its gravity, sort of like the guy in The Scarlet Letter.

So Toby and Patrick went back and re-recorded the second half here.

Over at SNY Why Guys, Rob Steingall takes a look at Yu Darvish, the young Japanese right-hander rumored to be bound for the Majors next season.

If Darvish is posted, there’ll be a ton of hype around him: He’ll be 25 in August, he throws in the mid-90s, and he has been completely dominant in Japan for years. Then there’ll be backlash: Hideo Nomo is still the best starting pitcher to have come over from the NPB, and much-hyped Japanese imports Hideki Irabu and Daisuke Matsuzaka fell short of expectations.

But Darvish has been significantly better than all those guys were in Japan. And it’s silly to cite a couple of examples as concrete evidence that Japanese pitchers won’t live up to the hype (or salaries) in the U.S., plus 25-year-old free-agent pitchers that appear to have big upside don’t come along every day. The whole thing’s going to be pretty interesting, assuming it happens.

ANALYSIS!

Seriously, though: Will Dice-K’s struggles bring down Darvish’s price tag and posting fee? Is that fair? Should the Mets, financially strapped but without many other options for frontline starting pitching, join the bidding?

Hey everyone, let’s get ahead of ourselves!