The debate rages on in the comments section on yesterday’s qualified defense of the Mets’ offseason. It’s currently 49 comments deep and no one’s compared anyone else to Hitler yet, so that’s awesome. One guy called me a shill, but other than that, it was good work all around.

Anyway, I want to reiterate a point I made in the post but that I think got missed, at least based on the thrust of most of the comments. I in no way meant to excuse the Mets for their general lack of moves on the big-league level this year, but only to commend them for not selling the farm. As I wrote:

The Mets had opportunities to inexpensively improve their chances for 2010 without jeopardizing their future and missed them. I don’t know if there’s truth to the reports of budget constraints or bureaucratic inefficiency, or if the problem stems from either or both or is simply an innocent — and damning — misreading of baseball’s marketplace, but whatever it is, it isn’t good.

To that point, Howard Megdal wrote a good column for SNY.tv on Monday about how the Mets could have upgraded their roster for little more than the money they offered to Bengie Molina.

Sam Borden touched on a similar note today, pointing out that, as nice as it is that the Mets are playing up their past, it’d be nice if they did a little more to improve their present.

And if that weren’t all depressing enough, Mike Salfino uses the Bill James Handbook and catches up with Gene McCaffrey of Wise Guy Baseball to project how the Mets’ pitching staff will fare in 2010.

Because, you know, these websites are all about shilling for corporate interests. That’s precisely what we do here. (I honestly don’t know why I get so burned up by that, except, I guess, that it couldn’t be further from the truth, and I hate that anyone might think anything I write could be disingenuous.)

Anyway, Sam argues that my post yesterday defending the Mets for not destroying their future was akin to commending a man for not falling down the stairs on his trip to the basement, and maybe to some extent he’s right. Maybe that’s just how low my expectations have sunk.

I’m not sure, though. I’m still holding out hope that the Mets made a conscious decision to not trade prospects, and that it represents some sort of fundamental philosophical shift for the organization. And that could be very optimistic, I realize.

Regardless, now reports have it that the Mets have no money left. If that’s true, it’s both extremely bad and completely baffling, because, you know, what happened to that money they were ready to offer Bengie Molina and Joel Pineiro and all that?

And it’s a shame because, if it’s true, it would prevent one of the inexpensive moves the Mets could still make to upgrade their 2010 roster: signing Felipe Lopez.

I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble here, because I got plenty of comments and e-mails this offseason from Mets fans eager to see the return of Mike Jacobs to Flushing.

And I don’t want to waste too many words on the subject, because I don’t really want to imagine a situation wherein Jacobs plays too big a role with the big-league club.

But Mike Jacobs is about as one-dimensional a baseball player as could possibly survive in the Major Leagues. He is a power hitter. He does not hit for average, he does not get on base, he does not steal bases in the rare event he gets on, and he is not a good defender. Mike Jacobs sometimes crushes the ball. That’s his game.

It is not enough to make him a good Major Leaguer, or even really a capable Major Leaguer. By WAR, Jacobs has been below replacement-level for the past two seasons, and only barely above it in 2007.

That’s not to say it’s a bad move for the Mets to scoop him up on a Minor League deal. It’s a Minor League deal, after all. It will likely be a bad move if they cite his Major League experience and 32 home runs in 2008 and give him a 25-man roster spot over a more capable and deserving player, but since they haven’t done that yet, I’ll wait on it.

What’s a little bit baffling is where Jacobs fits in with the Buffalo club he’s likely destined for, since Ike Davis seemed destined to be the team’s starting first baseman. Plus the Bisons already have corner bats in Val Pascucci and Mike Hessman, and also Nick Evans and/or Chris Carter if they don’t stick with the big club out of Spring Training.

I guess Davis could be heading back for another go-round at Double-A to start the season, but given the way he torched that level in his half-year there in 2009, I can’t imagine he needs much more time there.

This is speculation upon speculation and I have no idea that it could be the case, but it would sure be neat if adding Jacobs to the Triple-A mix had something to do with giving Davis some time in right field. Davis played two games in right field at Double-A Binghamton last year and supposedly has a great arm — he was a pitcher in college — so having him take some turns in right could give the Mets some flexibility in their future handling of Davis.

Of course, since Hessman, Pascucci, Evans and Carter all have plenty of experience at first, I have no idea why Jacobs would change the way the team uses Davis in Buffalo. I’m just fantasizing, really.

On the whole, Jacobs is a low-cost, low-risk pickup. Since he’s unlikely to post a Major League on-base percentage north of .300, I wouldn’t call him a potential “high-reward” guy, but who knows?

This might be more of the Mets’ whole “doing better by the city of Buffalo” thing they pledged last season. But if that’s the case, man. I sure wish they’d have paid as much attention to the Major League roster as they did to the Triple-A one.

Bear with me: The Mets have had, to date, a successful offseason.

Before you click away or jump to the comments section to accuse me of abject shillery or horrifying optimism, check out what I wrote in October, after the fateful press conference where Mets brass called 2009’s results “unacceptable” and pledged change for 2010.

I argued then, as I have since, that the Mets — faced with so much uncertainty coming off the injury-addled 2009 campaign — should prioritize the future above all. I said that their offseason mantra should read:

First, do no harm.

That’s not to excuse all the minor failures of the winter, of course. The Mets had opportunities to inexpensively improve their chances for 2010 without jeopardizing their future and missed them. I don’t know if there’s truth to the reports of budget constraints or bureaucratic inefficiency, or if the problem stems from either or both or is simply an innocent — and damning — misreading of baseball’s marketplace, but whatever it is, it isn’t good.

But the Mets haven’t traded a Minor Leaguer since they sent Greg Veloz to the Nationals for Anderson Hernandez in August. And considering how tempting it must have been for the team to package prospects for veteran help this offseason, I will call that a victory.

Because the Mets are in no position to mortgage any little bit of the future for the success of the 2010 team.

I know what you’ll say: You must win every year in New York. This city won’t abide a rebuilding process. I hear you.

That’s not what this needs to be, though. The Mets don’t need to rebuild anything in 2010, they need to reassess. Entering the season with question marks at nearly every position, the Mets must figure out what they’ll get from all the players who were injured, ineffective or irregular last year.

If Jose Reyes, Johan Santana, Oliver Perez and John Maine are healthy, and Mike Pelfrey, David Wright and Francisco Rodriguez perform more like they did in 2008 than they did in 2009, and Jeff Francoeur plays like he did for the Mets and not for the Braves, and Daniel Murphy and Omir Santos prove they’re Major League regulars, and Carlos Beltran comes back healthy as soon as we hope he does, the Mets will be just fine.

That’s a lot of ifs, of course, and should some of them not pan out, the Mets will be less fine. The more ifs that don’t, the less fine they’ll be.

Fans have killed the team for the lack of clear-cut contingency plans, and to some extent, that’s fair. The Mets probably should have found a more capable backup shortstop than Alex Cora for the event that Reyes gets hurt again and another starting pitcher for the brigade.

But to me, the biggest contingency plan for the 2010 Mets is the 2011 Mets.  Because if things go horribly awry this season — and after 2009, we’d be foolish to dismiss that possibility — the team at least won’t have to look far to see the future. Top prospects Ike Davis, Fernando Martinez, Josh Thole and Jon Niese — should he not earn the fifth starter’s role in Spring Training — should all start the year in Triple-A.

Behind them, the team will have another crop of talented young players entering their first full seasons in the high Minors at Double-A Binghamton. The Mets may not be able to boast a star-studded crop of prospects on par with the Rangers or Rays, but theirs is hardly the dreck it’s been made out to be in the local media. ESPN’s Keith Law recently ranked the Mets’ system 15th out of the 30 Major League clubs.

And much of the Mets’ young talent is concentrated in the upper Minor League levels. Seven of Law’s top 10 Mets’ prospects should start the season at Double- or Triple-A, as should Kirk Nieuwenhuis, who missed Law’s list but ranked ninth on Fangraphs’, and Ruben Tejada, who placed ninth in Baseball America’s ranking.

Now I can’t say if this was all held intact by accident or design. For all I know, the Mets were eager to trade all their best prospects for one year of Bronson Arroyo but couldn’t get the paperwork in order.

But I’m hoping that’s not the case, and that there’s real reason for optimism here. I’m hoping someone in the front office — and who knows who it is — recognizes that the best way to develop a sustainable winner is to build one from within.

And so I’m hoping that the Mets’ biggest failure this offseason was not in roster construction, but merely in communication when they threw around terms like “unacceptable” and “change” and “spend” and “trade.” Maybe they would’ve been better off starting with the slogan I suggested back in September:

The 2010 Mets: Please Be Patient While We Get Our S@#$ Together

Instead, we’ve got, essentially, “The 2010 Mets: Losing is unacceptable, so here’s Jason Bay,” and a very angry fanbase.

I can’t imagine that’ll do much for ticket sales or advertising dollars, but I’ll chalk it up to another of the small losses that have shrouded the offseason’s larger win.