It is understood Fred Wilpon wanted to come as close as possible to replicating the Ebbets Field aura while overseeing the construction of the ballpark that replaced Shea Stadium in 2009.

Perhaps less understood is that the Mets have been trying for years to replicate the starting rotation that took the team to the 1969 world championship — with Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Gary Gentry — and the 1973 NL pennant — with Seaver, Koosman and Jon Matlack.

And if not those groups, then the Doc Gooden-Ron Darling-Bob Ojeda-Sid Fernandez consortium that nailed down the 1986 World Series championship and, with David Cone joining them, the 1988 NL East title.

That’s the model for the Mets and always has been, even if Pete Alonso’s 51-home run rookie season has fractured the equation the way the Dodgers hitting 3,000 home runs this season has intruded upon the franchise’s history of success being based upon pitching since the move to Los Angeles in 1958.

For all ownership has gotten wrong over the years, they got Citi Field right. It’s a terrific spot, more true to our town’s baseball heritage than the edifice on the other side of 161st Street in The Bronx that replaced the original Yankee Stadium 10 years ago.

And the Mets have gotten the rotation thing right, too, after a mix of trial and error. The organization’s conviction that championships can be won on the strength of its starting arms harkens back to a slightly different era, because now it is more about building seven-deep bullpens and trotting out openers than it is relying on the rotation.

But in Queens, the calendar still reads 1969, 1973 and 1986. That is not a terrible thing when you can rely on Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, Zack Wheeler and Marcus Stroman to take the ball every fifth day (Matt Harvey was once at the front of that list), but the formula has not produced a playoff qualifier since the one-game wild-card loss to the Giants in 2016, when Jeurys Familia allowed a three-run homer in the top of the ninth after Syndergaard had matched Madison Bumgarner zero for zero through eight innings.

The question is whether this can be a winning hand for an organization that faces critical decisions about Syndergaard, who was dangled at the trade deadline and fell flat on his face down the stretch, and the 29-year-old Wheeler, who is eligible for free agency following the season, who spun seven innings of dominant two-hit shutout ball before yielding a two-run homer to Tyler Heineman followed immediately by a pinch-hit home run to Curtis Granderson in a 4-2 loss to the Marlins on Thursday.

By the way, if you want to know why the Mets players did not throw Mickey Callaway under the veritable bus while sinking beneath sea level the first half of the year, get a load of the manager’s comments about Wheeler, who had stroked a run-scoring single to break a 0-0 tie in the seventh:

“I wanted him to get the complete game shutout and go into free agency on the highest note possible,” said Callaway, who won’t even get three percent of what is expected to be a lucrative deal. “He deserves to go explore what is out there for him.”

Players and pitchers have broken down routinely across the majors, but the epidemic did not touch the Mets’ rotation. Remarkably, the team got 32 starts from deGrom, 31 from Wheeler and Syndergaard (the latter due to pitch in Sunday’s finale against the Braves) and 30 from Matz (scheduled to go Saturday). This, Callaway said, was hardly by happenstance.

“It’s hard work,” said the manager, who once against professed his belief that he is the right man(ager) to lead the team into next season. “I think they all had good routines and that’s one thing I value more than anything.

“I do the same exact thing every day at the same exact time. And I think our starting pitchers definitely do that. It keeps you healthy. You know, it’s monotonous and it’s not exciting. But you have to do it to stay healthy. And the guys that I have been around have accomplished those things really well.”

Health equated to performance on the mound. Mets starters had the fourth-best ERA in the NL and the second-most innings pitched (two fewer than Washington before Thursday’s game). They were third in strikeouts, fifth in batting average-against, third in OPS-against and had allowed the fourth fewest home runs.

So pretty darn good, but still not good enough to pull the team over the finish line. No playoffs for the third straight season. Now, just like the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Mets wait ’til next year.