If this were 2018, would Todd Frazier be an Indian right now?

Like life, timing is everything in baseball. And the Indians have terrible timing right now.

Through June 12 this season, Jose Ramirez was hitting .198 with four homers and a .586 OPS and the Indians were 34-33. Ramirez took off from that point, resembling the star who finished third in the AL MVP voting each of the past two years, hitting .313 with 14 homers and a 1.003 OPS as the Indians went 42-21 through Saturday. On Saturday Ramirez fractured the hamate bone in his right hand. He needed surgery. He is done for the regular season.

His all-around dynamism is irreplaceable. But this season, more than ever, even acquiring veteran competence is pretty much impossible with the removal of waiver trades. Frazier, Miami’s Neil Walker and Texas’ Logan Forsythe are the kinds of veterans who would have passed through waivers previously and been eligible to be traded through Aug. 31 and still be available for postseason rosters.

The Mets with Brandon Nimmo due back by perhaps this weekend would further have freed up J.D. Davis and/or Jeff McNeil to play third base, maybe joined at some point in September by Jed Lowrie. That would have made Frazier, a free agent after the season, more available at a time when he might be losing starts anyway due to this scenario. It is conceivable, but unlikely the Mets could release Frazier before Sept. 1 and the Indians could grab him. In the past a trade for cash considerations or “B” level prospect would have been the route.

This was the fear when this rule was instituted, that a contender would lose a key player after the July 31 non-waiver deadline and not have a suitable way to find a replacement. There have been more named veterans designated for assignment or released this August as San Francisco recently did with Scooter Gennett. If the Indians think the career second baseman could handle third — or that Jason Kipnis could move from second to third — perhaps he becomes an option.

But there is enough lingering concern in the industry to revisit this rule change and perhaps come to a compromise such as move the July 31 trade deadline back to, say, Aug. 10-15 to give bubble teams longer to decide whether to sell or not plus give legitimate contenders a little more time to fix their rosters if something goes awry.

Pete Alonso already has set the NL rookie record and the Mets franchise mark for homers in a season, so the team might not trade him for any of the 224 players (aside from Fernando Tatis Jr.) who had made their major league debuts this season through Wednesday.

What makes this quirky is that Alonso is literally the only original sign by the Mets of the 224 to debut for any team in 2019 — an original sign meaning the first organization to ink a player to a pro contract via the draft, undrafted free agency or an international sign. The second fewest is three by the Orioles (Hunter Harvey, Branden Kline and Mike Yastrzemski). On the other side are the 15 by the Astros followed by the Rays at 12.

The Yankees are midpack with eight: Phillip Diehl. Thairo Estrada, Mike Ford, Joe Harvey, Brady Lail, Adonis Rosa, Nick Solak and Matt Wotherspoon. Sometimes there is a lot less impact in volume than simply having someone such as Alonso.