You may be right. I may be crazy. But it just might be a lunatic ... oh, sorry.

I was completely unaware Wright's .243 average with runners in scoring position somehow diminished the 115 runs he scored and the 124 he did drive in. And I guess his defense was negated because he batted .243 with runners in scoring position?

Now who's not real?

No Mets teammate, not even Santana, had more positive impact in as many games as Wright.

The MVP ballots distributed to the 60 voting members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America include few instructions, but they do urge the constituency to consider the numbers of games played by candidates. Wright played in 160, Santana made 34 starts.

Not that my writing Wright was the Mets' most valuable player is comparable to an official vote, but I have voted for the MVP enough times to understand the process. And even if Santana's impact on the bullpen and in the games before and after his starts is considered, it doesn't bring his contribution to the level of Wright's.

There's a reason so few starters win MVP Awards, or even place among the leading candidates. And when a starter does win -- see Bobby Shantz in 1952, Don Newcombe in 1956, Sandy Koufax in 1963, Bob Gibson and Denny McLain in 1968, Vida Blue in 1971, Roger Clemens in 1986 and eight instances in the 1930s and 1940s -- he typically has had a brilliant, dominating season for a championship team in the absence of a compelling performance by a position player on a winning team.

Wright didn't have a great season, but 124 RBIs, 115 runs and 33 home runs for a team eliminated on the final day is rather compelling.

Contemporary starting pitchers, as critical as they are, have less impact than their position-player brethren when compared with starters before the 1970s, when they pitched more. When Gibson, McLain, Koufax, Shantz, Newcombe and the earlier pitcher MVP's were elected, they were members of four-man rotations, starting higher percentages of their teams' games and pitching higher percentages of their teams' innings than more contemporary pitchers. By definition, they had greater impact than today's starters.

McLain, while pitching for the American League champion Tigers in 1968, started 25 percent of his team's games, pitched 28 complete games and handled 22.8 percent of the team's innings. And those figures don't address his victories. His 31 wins were 30.1 percent of his teams' total.

Santana was the Mets' primary starter, of course. And I would argue that he had a better season as a pitcher than Wright had as a position player. But while he started 21 percent of his team's games, he pitched three complete games and 16 percent of the Mets' innings. His 16 victories were 18 percent of his team's victories. And even if the six games he could have won with better relief are added, that's 24.7 percent.

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Pitching still is the critical factor in teams' successes, but starting pitchers have to produce seasons comparable to Santana's 2004, Dwight Gooden's 1985, Clemens' 1986 or Ron Guidry's 1978 to be considered for the league MVP. And by the way, when Santana was elected unanimously as the American League Cy Young Award winner in 2006, he placed seventh in the MVP balloting, one place behind teammate Joe Mauer, and well behind MVP Justin Morneau, also a teammate.

There's a message in that.

And one last thought: Wright started 33 of the 34 games Santana started and batted .311 with a .553 slugging percentage in those games. He scored 21 runs and drove in 31 runs. So he played a role, hardly insignificant, in Santana's success. It seldom works the other way.

Is it possible that the reason the Mets' bullpen fell apart was that Aaron Heilman was so unreliable that the other pitchers were overworked?
-- Alan G., Binghamton, N.Y.

Heilman's ineffectiveness certainly was the first domino. His performance as the primary crossover reliever affected every member of the bullpen. But his pitching didn't cause the others to perform poorly -- not at first, anyway.

They couldn't have been fatigued because of the workload by June. But indirect cause-and-effect was at work. Eventually, when relievers other than Heilman were summoned and they proved to be ineffective, the workload for all relievers increased -- in games and in the bullpen.

But Heilman's influence went only so far. The inability of Pedro Martinez to get to the seventh inning, the shorter starts by John Maine just before his season ended, the occasional shortfall performances by Oliver Perez and Mike Pelfrey and the inability of almost every reliever to prosper against left-handed and right-handed batters exacerbated the situation.

Who do you think will round out the coaching staff for 2009? It's important to bring in more qualified people. Luis Aguaya did a bad job. Some others I would like to see get a chance would be Gary Carter, Wally Bachman or maybe Bobby Valentine -- still one of the best baseball minds -- as a bench coach.
-- Stephen W., Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

I expect you'll be disappointed three times. Carter's public yearning for the Mets' managerial position -- he notified the club he was available before Willie Randolph was dismissed in June and then said publicly he had done so -- offended people in the organization. And Carter has told former Mets teammates that he was coolly received when he attended the final weekend of the season. At the same time, though, he has been successful as a Minor League manager with the Mets and in an independent league.

The Mets have had issues with Backman, who I think would be well-suited to serve as a coach. When Joe Torre brought in the great Bob Gibson as a Mets coach in 1981, he identified him as the "attitude coach." And that's what Backman could be -- a coach intolerant of poor performance, not an enabler.

I seriously doubt Valentine would leave his lucrative position as a manager in Japan to serve as a bench coach.

Rather than trying to find a scrap-heap reliever or an All-Star closer like Francisco Rodriguez, why don't the Mets look to Maine? He rarely pitches deep into his starts, and he is at his best in the first three innings. I know they are potentially going to lose Martinez and Perez, which would create holes in the rotation. But I don't believe Maine provides enough as a starter. The Mets do have Jonathon Neise, and the free agent market might allow them to fill the void in the rotation that would develop if Maine was the closer.
-- Dan. D., Nutley, N.J.

You've pretty much answered your own question. At this point, the Mets have three certain starters in Maine, Santana and Pelfrey. Neise is a projected starter, but you need only to look to the Yankees of last summer, or to Pelfrey in 2007, to see what can become of a young starter.

The Mets occasionally have seen Maine as a potential closer, as the Yankees did with Dave Righetti after Goose Gossage left them following the 1983 season. But there's no way they can see him as the possible closer at this point, not when he is recovering from surgery, when the rotation has voids and alternate solutions for the rotation are not in abundance.

From being around the clubhouse, do you think that Ryan Church disliked playing in New York?
-- Jordan R., New York

In a word, no. If I he was uncomfortable, he performed quite well before the second concussion.

I would like the Mets to forget about Carlos Delgado (old and better-suited for the AL) and Oliver Perez (not worth the money he will demand). I'd prefer they pursue Mark Teixeira as a free agent and a trade for Jake Peavy. The money would be better spent for a younger, switch-hitting first baseman, and since the Padres are shopping Peavy, who likes the NL, why not take a shot?
-- Shawn, Albany, N.Y.

The Mets would be a better team with Teixeira and Peavy than with Delgado and Perez, no question. Just how they would import Peavy and not create other holes that require filling is a question, though. I'm still not convinced the Mets won't exercise their option on Delgado and then package him with other players to make a deal for a starting pitcher. Chances are that trade won't involve the Padres, though. They have no need for a first baseman with designated-hitter skills.