By now you’ve probably heard that the Mets put Rod Barajas on the disabled list yesterday and called up legendary Minor League masher Mike Hessman.

Cool.

I wrote yesterday that the team could not afford to carry a roster handicapped by yet another player nursing a day-to-day oblique injury, and Barajas’ absence will give Josh Thole a chance to show he belongs in a regular role at the big-league level. The couple of weeks won’t be an adequate sample to judge Thole either way, but hopefully he gets hot and locks down the job, because the Mets need offense and everyone loves a productive young homegrown player.

Hessman gives the Mets a little defensive flexibility — he is experienced at both infield corners and has actually played every position on the field in his lengthy Minor League career.

But more than that, Hessman provides right-handed pop off the bench. The active Minor League home-run leader, Hessman boasts a .571 slugging percentage in Triple-A in 2010.

Hessman won’t get a ton of hits that aren’t home runs; he’s a three-true-outcomes guy all the way. But given Fernando Tatis’ struggles (in a small sample) as the Mets’ in-house righty bench bat with defensive flexibility, Hessman likely represents an upgrade to the Mets’ reserve corps.

Plus, y’all know I love a Quad-A masher and root like hell for them to get a big-league shot. Hessman has had a few — he has played in 77 games over parts of four seasons with the Braves and Tigers — but here’s hoping he hits well enough to stick this time. Good luck, sir.

I originally thought that your #BlameBeltran hashtag was just a sort of joke you were doing, and that there weren’t actual Mets fans with brains and thoughts that were under the impression the team was not winning because Carlos Beltran had ruined the team’s chemistry.

Then I went on Facebook and saw a friend of a friend of mine who watches the team on a consistent and regular basis blaming Beltran, Ollie and Castillo for ruining the team’s chemistry…

I was wondering if you had any ideas where this line of reasoning comes from? Have there been any reports that the players on the team don’t like Beltran?

– Aaron, via email.

The ellipses replace a long Facebook argument between Aaron and his friend covering all-too-familiar territory. You know the one: Jeff Francoeur plays with hunger and fire, the Mets were playing better before Beltran returned, and thus, obviously, Beltran ruined the team’s chemistry.

The friend’s argument assumes a lot, most notably: A) What happens in the clubhouse contributes to what happens on the field and does not merely reflect what has recently happened on the field. B) Carlos Beltran (as well as Ollie Perez and Luis Castillo) is a bad guy in the clubhouse.

To answer Aaron’s questions: No, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything to suggest that players on the Mets don’t like Beltran. I’ve seen columnists cite anonymous “team sources” and the like to suggest that Beltran is soft, but I can’t remember anything suggesting he is less than an ideal teammate. In fact, much has been made about the way he helped Angel Pagan this offseason.

If I had to guess, I would assume the perception that Beltran is a negative or divisive figure in the clubhouse stems from the fact that he is a Puerto Rican guy named Carlos and so has always been linked by many fans with fellow Puerto-Rican-guy-named-Carlos, Carlos Delgado.

I don’t spend nearly as much time around the team as the beat writers do and so a lot of this is speculation, but Delgado got a lot of heat in the media for being a bit outspoken and sometimes abrasive. Billy Wagner’s “f***ing shocker” outburst, I’m pretty sure, was aimed at Delgado.

And I think fans read negative items about Delgado — who, I should mention, was himself praised by many of his teammates as a great leader — and extrapolate them to Beltran. But ask the Mets’ beat writers or the guys in the SNY booth, and they’ll say nothing but good things about Beltran’s attitude and work ethic.

For whatever reason, many Mets fans don’t like Beltran, and so I think they just subconsciously assume the players on the team feel the same way. The best example of this, I think, is Castillo.

Scour the Internet for a negative report from inside the clubhouse about Castillo’s work ethic, attitude, qualities as a teammate, anything. I’m almost certain you won’t find one.

We, the fans, don’t like Luis Castillo because he absorbs a significant portion of the Mets’ payroll without showing much for it. So we guess David Wright doesn’t like Castillo either, because we like David Wright and he must feel the same way we do about the Mets’ second baseman. The Internet is rife with assumptions about Luis Castillo being a negative force in the Mets’ clubhouse only from people who have never been anywhere near the Mets’ clubhouse.

And I don’t mean to appeal to any sort of authority I might earn by being credentialed. I attend maybe half the Mets’ home games, tops, and I don’t have the type of relationships with any of the players that guys on the beat develop.

But I read a whole, whole lot about the team, and I spend a lot of time tracking how and where these rumors get started. I just don’t think there’s any strong evidence to believe that Beltran is in any way a negative presence in the clubhouse, nor that it would mean much if he were, if he were producing.

For what it’s worth, a few survey responders asked for more weekend posts. That’s a good idea and something I hope to figure out. I try my best to avoid spending too much time in front of the computer on weekends for the sake of my back and, mostly, my sanity. But I’ll come up with something.

As for the Mets? Not good. I maintain that they’ll hit sooner than later, but man do they look terrible.

A few things:

Jerry Manuel took a lot of heat on Twitter and elsewhere for pulling R.A. Dickey out of Sunday’s game. In the heat of the moment, I wished he would have left Dickey in, but in retrospect I think Manuel made the right call there. Dickey has been great, pitchers need their legs, and no reason to risk losing him for any stretch of time. Obviously he maintained he was fine, but lots of players do that, and he didn’t look good on the plays in the infield. Yes, the Mets needed innings after using up their bullpen on Saturday, but there are better reasons to get on Manuel’s case.

Like, for example, allowing Pedro Feliciano to face so many right-handers in a 0-0 tie. Especially — especially — once one of them got on base. It’s amazing how frequently Manuel overlooks glaring platoon splits considering how often he makes decisions based on ones that don’t exist. With the team stumbling and the offense inept, you really can’t have Feliciano facing righties there.

There’s been some talk of a shakeup, either on the roster or in the coaching staff. Good. I don’t know if it will make a difference but as long as the Mets don’t do anything stupid, it probably can’t hurt. I’m not sure the sudden offensive implosion has anything to do with Howard Johnson — I’m skeptical of how much impact a hitting coach really has — but it’s certainly not good for his resume.

I’m not certain the extent of Rod Barajas’ injury, but if he’s going to be out for more than a few days, he should be put on the disabled list. The Mets’ roster is already handicapped by the presence of three catchers who can’t play other positions so it’s not like playing man-down will affect them too much, but giving Barajas a couple weeks to rest his oblique will give the club time to assess whether Josh Thole can take over the catching job on a more permanent basis. At the very least, having Thole in the lineup could help jumpstart the offense, plus having an extra bench player will give Jerry Manuel a little more flexibility.

Also — and I really am just talking out my ass here — the team should probably take a close look at whatever oblique stretches the players are doing. Maybe three separate oblique injuries in the course of a month is a coincidence, but, you know, can’t hurt to examine that.

Oh, and as for the Dan Haren trade? Unbelievable. I’ll say that the kids Patrick Corbin and Tyler Skaggs that the D-backs will get back are both very young and have good peripherals in A-ball, but Joe Saunders just isn’t very good. It’s easy to say, “the Mets should have been able to match this deal,” but most teams in the Majors should have been able to match this deal. I don’t really get it. Some have argued it has to do with the money remaining on Haren’s contract, but that’s ridiculous. A pitcher of his caliber is a steal at $29 mil over the next two seasons.

Should the Mets make a move now? I don’t know. My gut says no, but it’s awful hard to read the market after Cliff Lee went for a huge haul and Haren, a pitcher ultimately more valuable than Lee thanks to his reasonable contract, went for pennies on the dollar. If the Mets can pick up someone as a straight salary dump, then yeah, do it. If they’ve got to move prospects of even marginal value in the name of saving this particular season, I’d hold off.

Get a hold of yourselves. Deep breath. The Mets will hit again. These Mets. I know that’s hard to believe, given the stinking, putrid way they’re approaching marginal opposing pitchers.

But the Mets’ offense is not impotent. The Mets’ offense will rise again. This happens to a lot of teams, every once in a while.

To convince myself of that, I plugged each Mets regular’s rest-of-season ZiPS projecting into David Pinto’s handy lineup analysis tool. Pure nerdery, I know. Ike Davis didn’t have a projection, so I used his current season line.

With the current regulars batting in the current order, the Mets should score — according to the tool — 4.69 runs a game. That’d be good for fourth in the National League as it currently stands. With Josh Thole subbed in for Rod Barajas, it jumps to 4.78.

That’s a lot, and it’s a lot more than the 1.88 runs per game they’ve scored  since the All-Star Break or the 2.78 they’ve mustered in the month of July. I have no idea what’s happening, but I am certain that the Mets have too many good hitters for it to happen for much longer.

They took a step toward upgrading their pitching last night by finally cutting bait on Fernando Nieve. Now they risk losing him on waivers — the horror — but marginally improve their bullpen with Manny Acosta. At the least, if Jerry Manuel is confident enough in Acosta to pitch him more than once a week, it should mean more frequent rest for Bobby Parnell and Pedro Feliciano.

Talk looms that the Mets will try to upgrade their rotation via trade, but by all accounts they are not willing to give up the necessary prospects to give up a front-line starter like Roy Oswalt and Dan Haren. That’s smart; mortgaging too much of the future in a season when they’re on the fringes of the playoff race reeks of 2004.

But then the second tier of supposedly available starting pitchers — Ted Lilly, Jake Westbrook and the like — don’t appear to be a massive upgrade over the fellows the team already has in house. Certainly if one is available on a straight salary dump, the Mets should jump on it — all teams need pitching depth.

And every time it looks like the wheels are coming off Hisanori Takahashi’s wagon, it turns out he’s just caulking the thing to cross some raging rapids, or something. Takahashi has not been great, but he hasn’t been much worse than Jake Westbrook, either. Westbrook could improve the team by bumping Takahashi into a bullpen role, but the upgrade is probably not worth a prospect of even minor repute.

Remember that as good as Takahashi was as a reliever, it was across a reasonably small sample during a time most of the league had never seen him. I don’t think it’s safe to just plug him back into that role and assume he’ll be as good as he was in April and May.

A guy who might help the team without costing anything is a dude I mentioned yesterday, Triple-A righty Dillon Gee. Gee has a deceptively high 4.52 ERA at Buffalo, but has shown excellent control and strikes out nearly a batter an inning. Gee is prone to the gopherball — a problem that would be at least somewhat alleviated by pitching in Citi Field — and has likely been victimized by a defense that often features Mike Jacobs and Val Pascucci on the field at the same time.

Promoting Gee into a bullpen job could serve a dual purpose: Adding to the big-league club a pitcher who can reliably get the ball over the plate and allowing the Mets to judge if and how Gee’s not overpowering but apparently effective stuff looks against Major League competition. If he succeeds, Gee could slot into the rotation if and when Takahashi proves ineffective for more than a 1-2 start stretch.

Gee is not on the Mets’ 40-man roster, but I believe the rule states that when a player without options (like Nieve) is put through waivers, he is removed from the 40-man. Pretty sure that’s the case, but either way, Eddie Kunz and Omir Santos are currently on the 40-man as well, so there’s probably some room for flexibility.

Of course, there’s the issue of space on the 25-man roster. Any number of current relievers might prove ineffective in short order, but obviously the odd man out should be the bearded rich guy with the WHIP around 2. But then that’s apparently not going to happen. Nevermind.

Jeff Francoeur’s days in a Mets uniform could be numbered.

According to an industry source, the team is trying to trade the right fielder, and could have a deal in place by the time the Mets finish their series in Los Angeles this weekend.

Francoeur would welcome a trade, according to a person friendly with the right fielder, if it gave him a chance to play every day.

– Mike Puma, N.Y. Post.

Hey, that’d be great. Who wouldn’t like to see the Mets and Frenchy end their relationship amicably? Francoeur goes someplace to show off his durability and arm, the Mets part ways with a player rendered extraneous by superior outfielders.

When the Mets start their regulars these days, their bench includes two catchers, a lefty pinch-hitter who can’t really play the field, a right-handed “hitter” who can only play right field and Alex Cora. It doesn’t allow for a whole lot of maneuvering.

Parting ways with Francoeur would allow the team a little flexibility to install a more versatile righty bat on the bench, which might be valuable enough to the team to mitigate all the beat-writer heartbreak.

The question is, what team is going to give Frenchy the opportunity to play every day? He was pretty much the worst starting right fielder in baseball this season, so which club feels it can upgrade with Francoeur in its lineup?

No clue. But if the Mets can get something of even marginal value back from that team for a corner outfielder with a .673 OPS, then, well, do it.

I’m not gonna lie: I was asleep when Fernando Nieve blew the game last night. Put me down for the ol’ WW — wasn’t watching.

I can think of a few reasons Nieve shouldn’t have even been in the game, but I’m going to ignore the one I usually touch on, about how managers should probably use their best relievers in close games rather than manage to a silly stat. I mean, that’s baseball.

Instead, I will argue that Nieve shouldn’t have been in the game because he shouldn’t even be on the Major League team, or, really, any Major League team. Nieve has a 6.00 ERA. He walks too many batters and allows too many home runs. After pitching in 28 games in April and May, Nieve has only been used in 12 games in June and July.

Now maybe the Mets love Nieve’s stuff and really think he’s a better fit for the Major League bullpen than anyone else in their system. But the way Jerry Manuel is using him — or not using him — seems to imply that the Mets are still hanging onto Nieve out of some combination of the vague inertia that often dominates their roster management and the fear that they’ll lose Nieve, who’s out of options, if they attempt to send him to the Minors.

And that’s not really a good reason to keep a guy with a 6.00 ERA in your bullpen if you’re trying to win a pennant this season. If the Mets were rebuilding and thought Nieve was a legit part of their future, sure. But not if they’re actually trying to win.

Especially — especially! — considering that they’re presumably only carrying Oliver Perez in their bullpen because they’re unwilling to swallow sunk costs and set him free, or, alternately, convince him to toil on the Kei Igawa Circuit of world’s richest Triple-A pitchers.

Two of the Mets’ Triple-A starters, Dillon Gee and Pat Misch, would likely upgrade their Major League bullpen right now. Lefty reliever (and former Nat) Mike O’Connor might too.

And another guy — a righty I’ve never before heard of named Manuel Alvarez — has posted a 1.36 ERA with an awesome 7:1 K:BB ratio in 53 innings across three levels this season. I don’t know anything about the guy, there’s not much in his history that indicates he’s this good and he only has 4 1/3 innings above Double-A, but, well, I’m not certain Nieve could dominate Double-A hitters the way Alvarez did. So there’s that, too.

If Manuel and Omar Minaya were so desperate to win earlier this season that they pushed their top starting-pitching prospect into Major League mopup duty, it’s absurd that they should now be carrying multiple players who are not the best fit to help the team win. And you could argue it goes well beyond Perez and Nieve.

The Mets are losing a lot of games, and that sucks. And they’re not necessarily losing games because they’re carrying Perez and Nieve. But those pitchers’ presence on the team speaks to a larger issue in roster optimization that has persisted throughout Minaya’s tenure in Flushing, one that absolutely does contribute to the losing.

David Wright, dressed in his Mets uniform, was weaving his way quickly, and somewhat nervously, through the crowd, adjusting his cap along the way. Some of the fans pointed and told companions who it was. One woman gasped, surprised at the sight of a real player, a star no less, walking by her. Most of the fans just stared, trying to make sense of a player seemingly on his way to buy a hot dog so close to game time.

But minutes later, Wright was the one who was somewhat speechless, honored to be in the presence of one of the greatest players in baseball history, Willie Mays. The get-together before a game between the Giants and the Mets reinforced a growing relationship between the two men, who are separated by background and age (Mays is 79, Wright is 27), but not in their admiration for each other.

– David Waldstein, New York Times.

Good read from Waldstein on Wright’s burgeoning friendship with Willie Mays.