The last two years, my wife and I have maintained a vegetable garden. Last summer we sort of half-assed it, just clearing a portion of the overgrown flowerbed in our backyard and planting a handful of seedlings. This year we went all-in: We pulled out all the weeds and planted a variety of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and herbs in organized rows running the width of our backyard.

It’s a tremendously satisfying pursuit, but one that requires way more patience than my media-addled mind was prepared for. In early June — just a couple of weeks after we planted the seedlings — I found myself often standing in the backyard examining the plants, as if my gaze might help them bear fruit months before they naturally should.

But no matter how excited I was then for the crop of vegetables I am now enjoying, I never threw out the vegetables that were already in my fridge. That would be crazy; the growing vegetables weren’t ripe yet, I had no idea which plants would ultimately produce produce, and the vegetables in my fridge were no less tasty or nutritious because of the ones that were growing in the backyard.

This is a metaphor, and one I’ve already extended too long. The point is this: The Mets should not non-tender Angel Pagan this offseason.

Pagan is a useful player, even in this down year. He plays a good center field, he can hit a bit, and he runs the bases well. He has struggled some with injuries and slumps in 2012, but he was pretty much the best player on the team last year.

He’s not the type of player you let walk away over a couple million dollars unless you have a damn solid plan for replacing him. He is the pepper you already have, and the only good reason you’d get rid of that pepper is if you had several already ripe on the vine outside and no more space in the fridge (or whatever pepper-storage container you want to use to stand in for payroll here).

I mentioned this on Twitter yesterday (without the vegetable stuff) and got several responses with suggestions for whom the Mets could find to play center field as effectively as Pagan for less than the roughly $5 million Pagan will likely earn in arbitration. The names: Coco Crisp, Johnny Damon, Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Matt den Dekker.

Of those four, only Crisp is a viable Major League center fielder at this point. And Crisp is essentially a slightly worse, slightly older version of Pagan that is likely to be slightly more expensive. He only represents an upgrade if you like change for the sake of change. More on that in a bit.

As for Nieuwenhuis and den Dekker: The former has been out since June with a shoulder injury and the latter has two months of experience above Double-A. Neither is considered a huge prospect, but both have hit pretty well in the Minors despite frequent strikeouts. Neither is in any way fit to be inked in to a center-field job for the 2012 Mets.

Again: Playing in the Major Leagues is much harder than playing in the Minors. Last night the Mets faced Cliff Lee for the second time this season. They have faced Roy Halladay twice, Tim Lincecum twice and Clayton Kershaw twice. From Little League on, the best players at every level advance to the next one, until the very best reach the Majors and find there’s nowhere else to go. A hitter is unlikely to ever see a pitcher of that caliber in Triple-A, and if he does, it’s for one game.

Maybe Nieuwenhuis shows up in Port St. Lucie and hits the way he did in Buffalo in the two months before he got hurt, and covers enough ground in the outfield to quiet concerns about his range. Maybe he gets sent to Triple-A to start the season and beats the hell out of International League pitching again, and all of a sudden the Mets have one of them good problems on their hands. Maybe all that happens.

But Mets fans should understand by now that teams can’t bank on maybes. The point of fostering depth in the organization — or part of the point, at least — is that it gives a team flexibility to upgrade at the positions that can be most easily upgraded with available players, rather than forcing it to spend the offseason filling holes. If you have viable Major Leaguers everywhere, you can go out and compete for the best free agent instead of the best free agent that plays the position at which you have no one else.

I suspect the Mets fans eager to run Pagan and Mike Pelfrey out of town mostly want to watch different players than the ones they’ve seen on losing Mets ballclubs since Citi Field opened in 2009. And the Mets have been playing a frustrating breed of crappy baseball these last few weeks, so people get antsy and angry and start yelling for change.

But listen: The change you’re seeking has already been made.

The new front office in Flushing appears dedicated to developing the depth the team has lacked these last few seasons, to signing draft picks overslot and improving the farm system, to maximizing the 25-man roster. Not every one of Sandy Alderson’s decisions has worked out, of course, but the process almost always seems to be the right one. That, combined with the financial flexibility afforded by this huge market, should eventually pay off.

It’s just going to take some time.