I just ran into a smart dude and good Mets fan who told me he thought the team should pursue Jon Garland, and definitely not Ben Sheets. He said they needed more certainty in the rotation, given how shaky things were after Johan Santana, and that Sheets did nothing to shore anything up.

That’s hard to argue with, but I did. Here’s why:

Jon Garland is just OK. He’s one of the most reliable bets in the Major Leagues to pitch 200 innings, and that’s definitely worth something. But they won’t be 200 great innings, or even 200 very good innings. They’ll just be 200 innings.

I think Garland would be a great guy to have around if the Mets knew they were going to get healthy seasons out of Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes and a productive one out of David Wright. Garland is the type of pitcher who can win games for a good offense, but probably not the type of pitcher who can win games on his own.

Ben Sheets, when he’s right, is precisely that type of pitcher. Sheets is coming off elbow surgery and hasn’t pitched since 2008 and so represents a pretty sizable risk. But he pitched like an ace in 2008 and the potential reward is much larger than anything Garland could offer.

Garland is the safer move, sure. But the Mets, as currently constructed, shouldn’t be making the safer move. With the Phillies, Braves and, to a lesser extent, the Marlins all poised to contend in the NL East in 2010, the Mets’ best shot at a playoff run is to take big bets on upside and hope they pay off.

Sure, it’d be nice if that weren’t the case, and the Mets had a roster full of sure things and just needed a steady back-of-the-rotation innings-eater like Garland to complete the package.

But the Mets, instead, have question marks basically everywhere.

Plus, as I’ve written before, they could probably scrap together something similar to the 200 decent Major League innings Garland would provide from a combination of Nelson Figueroa, Fernando Nieve and Jon Niese. One minor benefit to 2009 was that it forced the Mets to accumulate some much-needed depth.

What they likely won’t get from that group, though, is the type of dominance Sheets might provide. And they wouldn’t get that from Garland, either.

Obviously money is a big factor, and rumors earlier this offseason said Garland wanted to stay on the West Coast and Sheets wanted to go to Texas, so this could be an entirely pointless blog post. Plus if Sheets wants an Oliver Perez contract, then, well, screw it.

That’s all I’ve got.

Nick Piecoro at AZCentral.com reports that there’s nothing new on the Chris Snyder front, but I wanted to discuss it a little further.

I mentioned Luis Castillo in my post yesterday, but I was mostly kidding (hence the reference to fingers and toes being crossed, and the rare use of the double question mark). But when Mets fans consider their favorite team taking on another team’s unwanted salary, they instinctively hope Castillo can somehow be pawned off in the deal.

But though the money and years owed to Castillo and Snyder are actually quite similar — Castillo is owed $12 million through 2011 and Snyder $10.5 plus a $750,000 buyout, so $11.25 million total — there’s a huge, huge difference in their contracts. It’s this:

If Snyder is healthy and playing the way he did in 2007 and 2008, he is a bargain at that rate. If Castillo is healthy and playing the way he did in 2009, he is still overpaid.

So think about it this way: Snyder, especially to a team without a catcher, offers a ton of upside, despite the injury-related risk. Castillo, to the Diamondbacks, offers the possibility he’ll play like Luis Castillo. And lest we forget, he still brings a fair share of injury-related risk, too.

Plus, if the Diamondbacks believe Snyder will return to full strength after back surgery, it could behoove them to hold off on trading him and wait to see if Miguel Montero continues his success. Then, if he does, Snyder could be dealt during the season, once he’s proven his health and his value has risen.

Also, it would seem strange for Arizona to deal Snyder, presumably to free up payroll, only to take on more payroll in Castillo. Plus they’ve already added one shaky-fielding second baseman this offseason in Kelly Johnson.

Piecoro offers a great rundown of the Diamondbacks’ potential motivation to trade or not trade Snyder, and I recommend reading it. It’s always important to keep in mind that two teams need to sign off on deals. I forget too often myself.

Everytime I hear Mets assistant GM John Ricco’s name, I think of the following NOFX song, from one of my favorite albums ever, Punk in Drublic.

And I realized that there’s a whole lot about this song and the Mets’ current situation that seems to fit, really.

Things we never tried to disallow
have come back to haunt us now