Sandy Alderson recently stated he was willing to “overpay” for the right hitter to help his lineup. When he said that, he had one player in mind — Ben Zobrist, The Post has learned.

Alderson had expressed his interest to Oakland officials about Zobrist, but has seen the switch-hitter, at least temporarily, pulled from the market.

Oakland has won 12 of its last 18 games and actually has the third-best run differential in the AL despite being 37-45 and last in the AL West.

Because of this, A’s general manager Billy Beane has tempered sell-off talks, at least for now, to use more of the month to determine whether his team should go for it or at least market walk-year players such as Zobrist, Scott Kazmir and Tyler Clippard.

Thus, for now, the player whom the Mets were targeting is unavailable — but stay tuned.

Zobrist fits what the Mets need and Alderson loves on-base skills. Zobrist has a .360 on-base percentage this year and .354 for his career. In addition, he is a switch-hitter who can play multiple positions.

For the Mets, he likely would play second, though he would have the ability to move around when (and if) David Wright returns, if the Mets wanted to put Daniel Murphy back at second.

The complication for the Mets is that they will hardly be alone in pursuing Zobrist. The Yankees, for example, also are sure to be interested, plus the Nationals, Royals and perhaps others.