During the 2014 season, nine different pitchers started games for the New York Mets. Of those nine, eight are still under team control for the 2015 season -- only Daisuke Matsuzaka and his nine games started have left Queens. Jenrry Mejia and his seven starts shouldn't count either, but that still leaves us seven potential starters (hi, Carlos Torres!) who accounted for 90% of the teams starts. And that doesn't include Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, or hold-your-breathe-and-pray options like Matt Bowman and Cory Mazzoni.

The 2015 Mets: We Have a Lot of Pitching

What the Mets don't have is a shortstop, a lot of money, a reasonably priced ticket plan for families, free parking, and a lot of other things which other teams have, but that's a story for another day. We have a lot of pitching -- more than we need -- and at this point, we really should cash some in.

That's why the Mets should pay Bartolo Colon to suit up for another team next year. And to be clear, I'm saying they should trade him, pay his whole salary, and pick up a decent prospect in return.

Here's why:

1) We don't need nine pitchers.

I think that part is self-explanatory. But just in case, an Opening Day rotation of Harvey, deGrom, Wheeler, Niese, and Gee -- with Montero available if need be and Syndergaard to be called up once his extra year of team control is ensured -- is probably a minor-at-best downgrade from the Colon-included version of our rotation. So we're not giving up much.

2) The Mets budget requires that we maximize value for each dollar spent.

The Mets ownership is broke, we get that. Faced with this reality, we have to make sure that when the team spends $11 million on a player, there's at least a reasonable chance of getting $11 million in value for that player. In the abstract, Colon could be worth that much if not more -- I'm not arguing the relative reasonableness of his contract. But the marginal value of having him on the team is nowhere near that mark. We simply have too many alternatives who, in the least, can approach his value. Therefore, the Mets need to find a way to get value for that $11m spent -- and it's almost certainly going to come via some sort of trade because:

3) At this point in the off-season, if the Mets cut payroll, it's not going to be reinvested in players.

In November or December, you could have made the case that the Mets should have taken basically anything back for Colon, as long as the acquiring team took on his salary. That's because the Mets could have turned around and used the $11m saved on a free agent. But now, there's nothing left, and there aren't any obvious salary-swap deals out there. If the Mets trade him now, those $11 million savings will go into to the pockets of the Wilpons -- it won't be reinvested in the 2015, and we have no reason to believe it would be reinvested in the future teams, either.

There's actually a decent precedent for by thinking here. Last year, the Mets traded Ike Davis after the start of the season, saving about $3 million. But from that point on, spending didn't budge. And it's not like we've seen an uptick in spending this off-season.

4) Dillon Gee isn't getting us value back.

The sad-but-true secondary story of the Mets off-season is that no one wants Dillon Gee all that badly. He's a good-but-not-great pitcher who is making a reasonable salary, but one which isn't a huge bargain. Basically, he's the type of guy you're glad to have on your team -- you need a five starters and he's good enough to make most rotations -- but he's hard to trade for, because there are lots of ways to get guys like Gee.

5) A paid-for Colon can land us a real prospect.

I kicked this question around on Twitter and the general feeling was that Colon could net us a top 200 but not top 100 prospect, and probably someone who isn't close to the Majors. To give equivalents currently in our system, someone like Marcos Molina, Jhoan Urena, or the like. In an online chat, I asked Rob Neyer the same question, and here's how he replied:

That was a bit vague, so I followed up:

To give some context, Sickles has Kevin Plawecki has as his fifth-best Mets prospect, followed by Rafael Montero and Michael Conforto. All three are straight B-grade prospects. I think Neyer's being optimistic, but even if he is, the point is that there likely would be a robust market for a free Colon -- even (especially?) this late in the off-season.

Trading Colon and picking up his salary is a good baseball move. It won't happen because, from a PR standpoint, it looks terrible -- teams hoping to make the playoffs rarely trade away talent for prospects, and similarly, they almost never invest a significant portion of their annual budget in a scheme like this. But for 2015, the loss is minimal and perhaps nothing, and it helps the team succeed for years to come.