Toby Hyde, just returned from a trip to the Arizona Fall League, provides a great scouting report with video on Mets’ prospect Reese Havens. He writes:

The game film validates, to some degree, the power he showed in St. Lucie, and his approach was plenty patient.   Add a few more singles to his batting average in the FSL (where he struck out just 73 times in 97 games) and his .247/.361/.422 line would look a lot better.   I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see Havens hittin .280/.380/.450 by July of next year for AA Binghamton.

Havens will likely continue his transition from shortstop to second base with the B-Mets this year, under the watchful eye (or maybe the watchful shimmying hips) of Timmy Teufel.

If you recall, Havens was a guy expected to move quickly through the Mets’ system when they drafted him in 2008. On paper, his stats with Port St. Lucie in 2009 weren’t overwhelming, but it’s important to keep in mind that the Florida State League is generally considered a pitcher-friendly one.

According to MinorLeagueSplits.com, Havens’ line, when neutralized for park and luck, becomes a much more impressive .280/.387/.465, far more in keeping with the one Toby predicts for him at Double-A.

I’m far from sold on Havens, but his plate discipline and power — even at a low level — are promising signs. If he can continue progressing and successfully make the positional switch, he could be ready for regular play at Citi at some point in the 2011 season.

That’s a long way off, but it’s an important factor to consider while rumors abound about the Mets dealing Luis Castillo and signing Orlando Hudson to a multi-year deal.

Havens almost certainly won’t help the Mets in 2010 and it’s  silly to plan the team around a guy who’s still a couple of years away. The Mets will have a much more accurate sense of Havens’ longterm value to the team after he faces higher-level competition this season, though, so it might be imprudent to sign any second baseman on the backside of his prime for multiple years when they could have — in either Havens or Ruben Tejada — a good, inexpensive, young, homegrown solution ready midway through that player’s contract.

Again, if I was certain the Mets could compete in 2010, I’d be all about finding an upgrade over Castillo. But that’s not really the ticket to building a sustainable winner, and since the Mets frequently demonstrate no willingness to move on from sunk costs, it’d be a shame to see a guy occupy precious payroll and a starting spot just because the team made a misguided attempt to win immediately.

One quick note on Toby, for what it’s worth: He’s an excellent guy and does a tremendous job, plus he recognizes how I’m killing it, but he might be a vampire. We e-mail with some frequency, and I’m not certain I’ve ever received a message from him that didn’t arrive between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.

According to Adam Rubin, the Mets are “particularly intrigued” by Joel Pineiro.

It makes sense, because Joel Pineiro is particularly intriguing. Not necessarily as an answer in the Mets’ rotation, but just in general.

Looking at Pineiro’s counting stats, I’d immediately dismiss him as a potential free-agent fit. After all, he’s 31 and coming off his only decent year since 2003. Plus he doesn’t really strike anybody out.

But Fangraphs paints a more interesting picture, as it often does. Turns out Pineiro pretty decidedly changed his approach in 2009, confirming various reports. He threw way more fastballs (sinking ones, no less) than he ever did before — which probably contributed to his miniscule walk totals — and so, predictably, induced more contact.

His groundball rate went from hovering in the mid-to-high 40s to an outstanding 60.5 percent, dropping his line-drive and flyball rates accordingly. He cut his home runs per flyball rate in half.

There’s probably some luck and randomness in there, but Pineiro pretty clearly figured out a way to pitch to bad contact more effectively than he ever had before. Simply put, batters just didn’t hit him hard.

Whether that’s sustainable is something else entirely. Pineiro succeeded under Cardinals pitching guru Dave Duncan, and, like I said before, doesn’t have much of a track record to fall back on.

Essentially I just wanted to throw out the idea that Pineiro could be more than a one-year wonder. I’d expect him to regress toward his mean, but, assuming he can maintain his adjusted approach, be a pretty decent pitcher in the next couple of seasons.

The Mets could do a whole lot worse, in other words.

Also, for what it’s worth, I had a video game once in which Pineiro always ended up a Hall of Famer when you played in franchise mode. So there’s that.

Anyone who has read this space with any consistency knows how I feel about the Mets trading away prospects this offseason, but I’ll reiterate for newcomers. (And because I just don’t have much else to say today.)

There is a time and place to trade prospects.

Fans of almost every Major League club overvalue their team’s prospects, because — mostly thanks to the Internet, I imagine — we now follow them from the moment of their signing to the time they arrive in the big leagues or leave the organization. But prospects are never sure things, and many, many of the players that appear most bound for success, either mechanically or statistically, never turn into Major Leaguers.

So yeah, sometimes a team is best served by moving one or a couple of its best young players for an established star. If a team feels it is one piece away and a star player could be had at a reasonable cost, then yeah, pull the trigger.

For the Mets, this is not one of those times.

Obviously it’s best to evaluate such deals on a case-by-case basis, as no deal could be properly assessed without knowledge of the specific players involved. But the problem with established Major Leaguers is that they usually cost big money, and the Mets are already close to their reported budget.

A trade for Roy Halladay would be exciting, for sure. It’d give the Mets an unbelievable 1-2 punch at the top of their rotation.

But a trade for Roy Halladay would also be a trade for about $20 million a year for the next several years. And that gives the team a whole lot less flexibility to fill its countless other holes moving forward, including a couple in that same starting rotation.

Many will argue that the Mets are “built to win now” and so must go all-in to compete in 2010, since they will inevitably crumble after 2011 when Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes will, barring extensions, become free agents.

Guess what? That’s nonsense.

The only thing that could make the Mets a “win-now” club is committing to that philosophy. To say that the Mets must win in 2010 would be to know for certain that not a single one of their current prospects will be contributing at the Major League level by 2011.

That’s a possibility, of course. There’s always the chance that none of Ike Davis, Jon Niese, Fernando Martinez, Jenrry Mejia, Reese Havens, Brad Holt and Ruben Tejada pan out. I’m optimistic that at least a couple of them will, but then again, I’m a Mets fan. I overvalue their young players.

And with young players, there are few guarantees.

There is this one, though: For the first few years of their Major League tenure, players are always inexpensive. And with the recent trend of teams locking up young players to long-term extensions, Major League contributors can often be secured for a reasonable price beyond their arbitration years and deep into their primes.

And that, for about the millionth time, is what the Mets need. That’s what allows a team to free up cash for when the right free agents are available, and to take on payroll when a big-name player is available via trade.

Mortgaging the future for the opportunity to win in the present might work, at times, for small-market teams on the verge of losing a slew of stars to free agency. But a team with the Mets’ payroll should never have to.

A team with the Mets’ payroll should be built to win every single year, because making the playoffs — no matter how strong the club — doesn’t come anywhere close to guaranteeing a World Series victory.

The best way to do that is to make the postseason as frequently as possible, and so no team with the Mets’ means should ever build to “win now.” It is the very definition of short-sighted thinking.