I’ve beat up on John Harper a fair share in this space. I’ve never met the guy and it’s not anything personal, but I read the Daily News every morning and Harper often focuses his columns on (what I deem to be) unquantifiable nonsense.

But Harper published a column yesterday that has to be considered a must-read. And I don’t toss that phrase around liberally.

Essentially, Harper is issuing a huge “my bad” on behalf of the mainstream New York media for criticizing Cashman upon his failure to acquire Johan Santana before the 2008 season. He writes:

All along Cashman clung to what he believed was a better idea, a long-term vision that is materializing right before our eyes as CC Sabathia pitches the Yankees toward the World Series while players such as Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera, who would have been dealt for Santana, contribute as well.

Cashman was skewered for the gamble, and the Yankees did pay a price, missing out on the playoffs last season. But more and more it is looking as if that were a relatively small price to pay for a likely return to the World Series and more in the years ahead.

In a market where way, way too often people simply dismiss the idea of rebuilding or retooling by saying, “Well, New York demands a winner! We must win now,” Harper admits here that sometimes, patience pays off.

I think that’s something pretty important for fans and the media to remember when discussing the Mets this offseason. Yes, I think the Mets should be active on the free-agent market if they can find good players to fill in some of their holes at the right cost.

But I am certain there’ll be a call for the Mets to trade a gang of their better prospects for one good player, and I’m equally certain that’s a bad idea. The Mets have many holes to fill this offseason and, regardless of how they fill them, many question marks heading into 2010.

Moving forward — and especially if they continue to be active in the free-agent market — the Mets will need to have contributors that they’re not paying too much for. Real, actual Major League contributors who are above replacement-level. And the way to get those guys is not to trade away prospects in bulk.

You’ve heard this from me before, of course. Many times. But it’s still true, and it’s nice — and quite rare — to hear a newspaper columnist echo the sentiment.

CC Sabathia is many things. He is a Cy Young Award winner, the owner of a .261 lifetime batting average, and the active Major Leaguer who appears to have the best shot at winning 300 games.

But perhaps most importantly, he has replaced Wilford Brimley as the human being who most strongly resembles a Walrus:

As you can see, Brimley, in his even older old age (was Wilford Brimley even famous before he turned 60? Has there ever been anyone else who has only been famous as an old person?), has begun to look more like your cranky old neighbor with an awesome mustache and less like a large, flippered marine mammal.

No one can be sure why Brimley has started to look more human than pinnibed. Perhaps he has developed an aversion to bivalves, or perhaps it is just the affect of his body being racked by the ‘beetis.

Sabathia, on the other hand, should continue to feast on (many, many) clams moving forward, just as he does American League hitters.

And though that’s slightly less important than Walrusishness, it’s still pretty awesome.

And what’s especially awesome about the way Sabathia pitches — and perhaps this has something to do with his walrusy qualities — is that he does it in such ridiculous quantities.

Much has been made this postseason about Sabathia’s rough start in last year’s playoffs, and many have attributed that outing to fatigue after a long season of starting on short rest.

But in Sabathia’s three final regular season games — all thrown on three night’s rest and after he had already thrown more than 230 innings in the season — he struck out 21 batters in 21 2/3 innings while walking only four batters and posting a 0.83 ERA.

So I think it’s fair to wonder if CC’s bad outing was only that, a bad outing, and he’s not that affected by pitching on short rest.

Sabathia told reporters before last night’s game that his fastball might not be as sharp. And if we look at his velocity charts from 2008, we can see that there was a dip in his fastball velocity in the final start. But really only in that final start, and it wasn’t the lowest mark of his season.

Maybe that’s notable, and maybe Sabathia really couldn’t keep up throwing on three night’s rest all year long. Or maybe he just hasn’t been conditioned for it, and he actually has the capacity to remain effective for more starts and more innings than anyone in (very) recent vintage.

After all, not too long ago Nolan Ryan — a freak, no doubt, but a human nonetheless — threw at least 280 innings in five out of the six seasons from 1972-1977. In one game, in 1974, he threw a 13-inning complete game in which he struck out 19 batters and walked 10.

In other words, I wonder if certain pitchers have the capacity to pitch a lot more often, and a lot longer, than they are ever allowed in today’s game. Of course, I’ll never find out, because the Yanks would be foolish to risk an investment like the one they’ve made in Sabathia on such an experiment.

So I suppose I’ll just have to take pleasure in how much he looks like a walrus. Coo coo ca choo.

This is a completely subjective matter of little real import, but I’ve been talking to a bunch of Mets fans about World Series possibilities, and a shocking number would favor the Phillies over the Yankees.

What? No. No.

You’re killing me. The Yankees are annoying, and they’re the Mets’ crosstown rivals, and we’re all sick of certain elements of their fan base acting like entitled ingrates. I know what that’s about.

But the Phillies are the Mets’ actual rivals. They’re like the worst type of evil. And they won the World Series last year! Have you ever been to a game at Philadelphia as a Mets fan? Do you know how much worse it would be if they won a second World Series? It would be the worst thing that ever happened, bar none.

The Yankees have plenty of annoying players, but the Phillies have Shane Victorino. Are you really going to put yourself in a position of rooting for Shane Victorino? SHANE VICTORINO?

No. No, no, no.

Certain Yankee fans are going to be obnoxious and entitled regardless of whether they win this year, because the Yankees have 26 world championships to their credit. But one of the only things we, as Mets fans, have on the Phillies is that they’ve endured years and years of phutility.

Do you really want to lose that to stop the Yanks from winning No. 27?

I don’t. I’m not even rooting against the Yanks in the ALCS. These are probably four of the bottom six teams I’d care to see left in the playoffs (the Red Sox and Braves are the others), but there is no team I’m rooting against harder than the Phillies. Not even close.

John Harper and Wallace Matthews both wrote columns this week about A-Rod’s magical development of clutchness, specifically about how getting his steroids use off his chest and playing “under the radar” all season relieved the pressure that prevented A-Rod from performing in the playoffs.

But maybe A-Rod’s just performing in the playoffs because he’s one of the very best players in baseball.

Look: A-Rod had a couple of very bad postseasons in 2005 and 2006. That’s true. But those two bad stretches accounted for a total of 29 at-bats, hardly a reasonable sample size upon which to gauge his ability in the clutch. In 2007, A-Rod posted an unspectacular but solid .267/.353/.467 in the ALDS, but since he already had the unclutch label, all anyone wanted to see was how he didn’t come through.

And of course, they saw him “tight” and “pressing” and all of those vagaries we almost always notice when we have it in our minds that a player is struggling.

It’s the whole rabbit or duck thing again.

In A-Rod’s case, I saw it too. It really looked to me like A-Rod was somehow not programmed to come through in those situations.

Betting on it continuing, though? For the one of the best hitters of this era? Not a smart wager.

So now Harper is trying to take credit for having called, so to speak, A-Rod’s postseason dominance. But you know who else called it? The wisest of sportswriters: math.

It’s called regression to the mean. Good baseball players, when given a large enough sample of at-bats, will usually perform like good baseball players. Even if there is some mental hiccup standing in their way, the large majority of players will overcome it and again perform like they always do, because overcoming mental hiccups is an important aspect of reaching the Major Leagues.

Now A-Rod’s career postseason line is .294/.384/.519, remarkably similar to his career .305/.390/.576 line. His postseason record is notable only for his one notable postseason record: Most nonsensical columns inspired.

This is killing me, and I have no idea how or why it happened and I know that the 12-year-old version of me would kick my ass for even suggesting this, but I’m rooting for the Yankees over the Angels.

I’ve never been a hardcore Yankee-hating Mets fan because it never really made sense to me. They’re not in direct competition, after all. At least not on the field.

Normally I root against them, — just because — but for a variety of reasons (1988 included) I can’t in good conscience root for a Mike Scioscia-coached team.

I know that, for a lot of Mets fans, the most irritating thing about the Yankees is not the team itself so much as the team’s entitled and obnoxious fans. But it so happens that the small sample of Yankees fans I deal with on a regular basis are reasonable, gracious people and not at all like the type wont to start fights in the bleachers with anyone wearing the wrong color hat.

Those reasonable Yankees fans include Alex Belth and Cliff Corcoran, who invited me onto the Bronx Banter Breakdown to help preview the series:

Alex Belth and Cliff Corcoran from Bronx Banter let me fill in for the amazingly mustachioed Jay Jaffe for the Bronx Banter playoff preview. Here’s our take on the NLCS: