According to Ken Davidoff, Matt Holliday is reluctant to sign with the Mets this offseason because it’s hard to hit at Citi Field.

Here’s the issue: No one can really be sure that’s the case.

Looking up and down the Mets’ 2009 roster, it appears to be true. After all, Daniel Murphy led the team in home runs with 13.

Then again, looking up and down the Mets’ 2009 roster will reveal a whole slew of guys who have never hit for any appreciable power.

Moreover, and for like the eight millionth time, the 2009 Mets both hit more and allowed more home runs in Citi Field than they did on the road.

Park factors vary pretty greatly from year to year, and there are a lot elements that affect them. But ESPN.com’s park factors for 2009 showed that Citi Field reduced run scoring by about six percent. So yeah, it played as a pitcher’s park, but not exactly the cavernous vacuum of offense that so many have made it out to be. In fact, it played a whole lot like Shea did in 2008.

Baseball players are a chatty and superstitious sort. I don’t know much about Matt Holliday’s temperament, but I know that baseball players around the league appear to be legitimately afraid of ghosts in the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.

So it’s not hard to argue that word of phenomena that may not actually exist can spread quickly around the Majors.

I imagine the book on Citi has something to do with David Wright’s weird year. But I’m unwilling to chalk up his power outage to the park alone, since, again, he home runs at a (slightly) higher rate at home than he did on the road.

What was especially telling about Wright’s season, I think, is that he hit as many balls the other way as he pulled. Many fans nostalgic for some earlier era of Wright that may never have existed will argue that Wright should be driving the ball to the opposite field, but looking at his career splits will show that he has hit for much, much more power while pulling the ball.

Wright said a number of times that he was trying to go the other way more often to cater to the ballpark. (Edit: As Ceetar points out in the comments section, Wright may not have actually said this. I thought I remembered him saying it a few times, but I can’t find any evidence of it online. That appears to be mostly Jerry Manuel’s beat.) I have no idea if that’s true and that had something to do with his diminished power numbers, or if it was a function of the way the league was pitching him or the product of a strange one-year fluctuation. In any case, most of the actual baseball players and former baseball players I’ve spoken to say players should just hit the way they know how to hit, and not worry about adjusting to park conditions that may or may not actually exist.

And, you know, that makes a lot of sense.

Especially since, if Wright hit more like we all know Wright can, future Matt Hollidays won’t fear the specter of Citi Field’s home-run sapping dimensions.

Over at Amazin’ Avenue, Sam and Rob put together pretty solid lists of potential low-risk, reasonable- (not quite high-)reward pickups for the Mets.

Sam ran down the Minor League free agents, and Rob looked at potentially available pitchers. They’re both good reads, and they both reinforce a point I find myself making all the time: Every year, there are a bunch of talented players available for little cost that could provide value to a big-league club.

The Mets have a lot of holes to fill in the upcoming offseason, but one they should not overlook is their need for a capable backup middle infielder. Alex Cora was asked to do more than the Mets needed him for in 2009, plus he was hurt, so it’s hard to kill the guy for his performance. But he proved to be a poor defender at shortstop and didn’t hit at all.

Uncertainty surrounds Jose Reyes entering 2010, successful surgery or not. And Luis Castillo is unlikely to repeat his 2009 performance at the plate. The Mets would be wise to attempt to trade Castillo while his value is about the highest, but they could have trouble finding a taker for an injury-prone second baseman who can’t really play defense anymore.

So a contingency plan for the infield is a must. And it would behoove the Mets to find someone a little better than Cora so they wouldn’t be inserting an offensive black hole in their lineup if and when Reyes can’t play.

Wilson Valdez, who appeared to be the most capable defender of the backup-shortstop regiment in 2009, should return. But outside of a bizarrely awesome 2007 in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, Valdez has never been much of a hitter, and would probably be best served as an organizational safety valve stashed in Triple-A in case any infielder goes down with injury.

So then who? Well, your guess is as good as mine, so feel free to provide your guesses in the comments section or wherever. There are some free agents available who might be had on the cheap, but I have no idea what these guys are looking for or how the market will play out:

Akinori Iwamura: The Rays are apparently unlikely to pick up Iwamura’s option thanks to Ben Zobrist’s breakout season. He spent a big part of 2009 with a torn ACL, which is bad, but he came back healthy in September. He has been about a league-average defender at second and has stayed consistently around his career batting line of .281/.354/.393. But he’s never played shortstop and he’s coming off the ACL injury, so, you know, not a perfect fit.

Omar Infante: Infante may have played well enough over the past two seasons to earn a starting job somewhere, something he hasn’t had consistently since his first full big-league season as a 22-year-old in Detroit in 2004. He spent time on the DL in each of the past two years with HBP-related hand injuries, but he has been an average defender at second, short and third over his career and appears to be improving as a hitter. I suspect the Braves will want to bring him back, and again, I have no idea what he’ll cost, but he’d be a great fit as a potential super-sub.

David Eckstein: Please don’t sign David Eckstein. It would just be too irritating, plus he actually sucks at defense now.

And I’ll throw in, for good measure, a guy rumored to be on the block this offseason:

Mike Fontenot: Longtime readers will know that I’ve been advocating a Fontenot acquisition since 2006, when he was merely some guy hitting well and buried behind bigger prospects on the Cubs’ organizational chart. Now, after torching the ball in 2008 and not hitting at all in 2009, the tiny little Cajun could get dealt, even though he likely doesn’t have much trade value and he’s coming off a year in which his BABIP was .034 below his career line.

Fontenot hasn’t played a ton of shortstop in the Majors, but he’s been a good defender at second base and I’m convinced his offensive numbers will bounce back. I’m not certain Fontenot’s a perfect fit at this point, but I’d just like this to happen because I’ve been hoping for it for so long.