Just about every contender is a starving person and the Mets have the food — and their current leaning is not to share the provisions.

“They are entering this trade market with the most valuable pieces and are opting to sit on the sideline,” said an exasperated executive from a contending team.

There is still a bit more than two weeks left before the non-waiver trade deadline, enough time to shift direction. But I have yet to find a team official outside the Mets who believes Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard or even Steven Matz is getting traded.

DeGrom, in particular, seems all but certain not to move — “No way,” in the words of one club official. Syndergaard might not have enough time off the disabled list to gain full value for the Mets to move him, though the Mets have indicated a greater willingness with him than deGrom. And the Mets are valuing Matz, according to several executives, in an area a lot closer to an ace than an oft-injured, No. 3 starter.

“The way they are saying they will only move their top starters [deGrom and Syndergaard] for a truckload is just another way of saying they are not trading them,” an executive said.

The outside executives spoken to said they see these reasons independently or together in why the Mets are likely to hold onto their best starters:

1. Fred Wilpon is 81 and there is buzz, like previously with Tigers owner Mike Ilitch and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, that he wants to win again in his lifetime and, thus, doesn’t want to do a tear-down.

2. Ownership is sensitive to media/fan narrative that they don’t care about winning and so are hesitant to trade from among the few success stories on this roster.

3. Ownership is beholden to recency bias, and deGrom’s run of success the past two seasons overshadows that his value will never be higher than today. He is 30, has had arm troubles in his career (and needed Tommy John surgery) and will have just two years of service time until free agency after this season (Syndergaard will have three).

4. Ownership favors positive forecasts over the negative. So they are listening to those who say that a contender could be formed around three high-end starters as soon as 2019, rather than those who note the Mets have the worst record in the NL since the beginning of last season, they have a bottom third farm system, they have several bad contracts, they have culture/injury issues that have yet to be solved, and they have strong deficiencies on offense, defense, athleticism and the bullpen.

5. Ownership does not trust the executives and scouts who worked for Sandy Alderson and helped put the team in this dire position enough to make a monumental decision such as what is the right return for gems like deGrom and Syndergaard.

6. Ownership almost certainly is bringing in a new GM after this season and feels it should be that person’s responsibility to advise what to do with deGrom/Syndergaard.

If this is the case, then the Mets’ trade deadline is essentially going to come down to trading Asdrubal Cabrera, Jeurys Familia and probably Zack Wheeler.

“They are not going to get what they or their fans might think they are going to get for their walk-year guys [Cabrera and Famalia] and Wheeler,” an executive said. “I don’t think they are moving deGrom, though they would get an absolute ton for him, and if they really engaged and worked at it and worked with teams with a real need, they would get a package on him that everyone in baseball would say it was tough to move deGrom, but that is a real package. But I don’t think they are going to do that.”

Instead, they might be repeating their uninspiring returns from last year, when they prioritized saving money over maximizing talent.

Cabrera (.829 OPS) is not all that different from Neil Walker (.820 first half OPS in 2017) except Walker was a better defender and Cabrera costs less, so there is probably no need to eat money anyway. The Mets got an A-ball reliever, Eric Hanhold, from Milwaukee for Walker.

Familia is not all that different from Addison Reed, who in 2017 had a better first-half ERA and WHIP than Familia does now. Reed got the Mets three decent, but not great, relief prospects in Gerson Bautista, Jamie Callahan and Stephen Nogosek.

One executive said that aside from elite relievers such as the Yankees had two years ago with Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller that reliever’s health and performance is too volatile to surrender too much, especially because the market is flooded with bullpen arms and that teams will give up even less for a player in his walk year like Familia.

Multiple executives made the point that Familia is not as good as Kelvin Herrera, who also is in his walk year and despite being traded in mid-June (meaning a lot more potential games for the Nationals), the Royals only received three good, but not difference-making prospects. And Herrera’s poor performance to date for Washington certainly is not going to help the Familia market by reminding clubs of the volatility.

“I put [Familia] south of Herrera, but not by a ton, and more comparable to Reed,” one executive said. “If your pen needs a dominant right-on-right guy, he’s a good fit. But I worry about his health, and I don’t love him as a full-inning shutdown reliever in October if two of three hitters he would face are lefties.”

As for Wheeler, the executives spoken to agreed the righty has raised his value recently by sustaining health and pitching generally well. Still, even the good period of the past 12 starts provides just a 3.89 ERA, though the officials said with a better defense and pen Wheeler would likely have better results. Nevertheless, there is worry about Wheeler’s health and competitiveness in a pennant race.

The most heard comparison for Wheeler was Minnesota’s very available Jake Odorizzi, who also is righty and can be a free agent after next season. Wheeler has better stuff, but Odorizzi has a better track record of health and success, and with two full seasons of control ahead of him, the Rays got A-ball infielder Jermaine Palacios, who was hitting .189 in Double-A and whom MLB Pipeline does not have among the top 30 prospects in Tampa Bay’s stacked system.

So unless the Mets alter their approach and trade a top starter, they are looking at some redux of last year, in which the best they may get is to deepen their system/40-man roster.