…which should begin shortly after Omar Vizquel (41) signs a one-year deal to return to San Francisco in 2008.

The New York Times’ Tyler Kepner claims the Marlins will expect “a return similar to the one they got from Boston two years ago, when they traded Lowell and Josh Beckett for Hanley Ramírez and Aníbal Sánchez” in order to part with Miguel Cabrera. I guess Lastings Milledge, Mike Pelfrey and an autographed photo of Mike DiFelice won’t get it done.

“It is clear,” muses the New York Sun’s Tim Marchman, “that the Mets will at least attempt to meet this year’s epic collapse with some equally epic display of idiocy.” But enough about the continued employment of Chris Cotter. Marchman’s wigged out over an alleged approach
towards Alex Rodriguez.

David Wright won a Gold Glove yesterday. He may not have deserved it, but he’s a fine defender, and only Eddie Mathews among all third basemen in history has been a better hitter through age 24. The mere idea of moving a 24-year-old who already has a semi-reasonable claim to being the greatest everyday player in franchise history to another position is utterly insane. For his part, Reyes, also 24, may yet end up even better than Wright.

If the Mets sign Rodriguez, they’ll either risk destroying the career of a homegrown potential Hall of Famer, or they’ll have to move Rodriguez to first base or the outfield. This would make no sense. As great as Rodriguez is, his value is, again, not strictly in his hitting, but in his combined hitting and fielding. Would you sign Lance Berkman to a 10-year, $300 million contract? Because that’s essentially what the Mets would be doing if they signed Rodriguez and played him at first or in the outfield.

Maybe even more important, the Mets would be crippling their ability to improve in the future by doing so. Signing Rodriguez would increase their payroll enough that even one more significant signing would subject them to baseball’s luxury tax, a penalty of up to 40% on payroll above $155 million. Thus, if they wanted to sign Johan Santana next year, they could be looking at a real cost for the ace pitcher of as much as $40 million a year.

Rog alert! Kevin Davidoff claims the Mets are considering making an offer to Eric Gagne.