INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Laughter may often be the best medicine for the Mets, who face a catalog of serious tasks this winter, and Sandy Alderson, the team’s cerebral general manager, demonstrated again Thursday that he has the comic chops to elicit it.

Holding court inside the hotel lobby Thursday morning at baseball’s annual general managers meeting, Alderson deadpanned his way through a question-and-answer session. The pack of reporters was eager for clues on how he might try to improve a financially challenged team that has finished a combined 22 games under .500 in the two seasons he has been in charge.

Alderson has serious issues to address these days — the foremost one at the moment may be whether to trade the 38-year-old knuckleballer R. A. Dickey rather than try to sign him to a contract extension — but that did not stop him from poking fun at his problems, of which there are many.

One reporter asked Alderson for his assessment of the Mets’ outfield, which presently resembles a wasteland, without a single everyday player.