MLB

Mets wise to let Wheeler wait as Marlins hurry Fernandez

Jose Fernandez dropped a calling card at Citi Field yesterday, a notice that the Mets are not alone in the arms race.

The precocious righty’s first start above Single-A was an impressive major league debut. Born a month after the Yankees drafted a shortstop named Derek Jeter in 1992, Fernandez held the Mets to one run in five innings.

Marlon Byrd said Fernandez reminded him of Felix Hernandez, and Ike Davis noted the youngest pitcher in the majors looked as if he was “having fun probably because he was striking us all out.”

With his 95-mph heat, devilish late-breaking curve and poise that convinced Miami officials a 20-year-old could handle this jump, Fernandez fanned eight — the most ever by a Marlin in his debut.

That Fernandez was facing journeyman Aaron Laffey yesterday rather than Zack Wheeler emphasized the Mets are following a different and, I believe, proper strategy with their best pitching prospect.

The Marlins lost Nate Eovaldi and Henderson Alvarez to injury, and Jacob Turner did not show enough progress to warrant a rotation spot. So Miami went from limiting Fernandez’s exposure in spring training and ticketing him for Double-A to starting him in Game 6. Of course, the Marlins are as steady as Lindsay Lohan. They are the champions of changing plans — Team U-Turn.

Organizations that have even a whiff of contention should be aggressive in moving prospects to the majors. But after yet another payroll gutting of their roster, the Marlins will need a baseball miracle simply to avoid the worst record in the NL.

Thus, it makes no sense to start the arbitration and free-agent clocks on as talented a prospect as Fernandez, especially because money probably is going to remain an issue for the franchise.

Which kind of sounds familiar. For until proven otherwise, we have to assume the Madoff Mets also are in the penny-pinching business. We also should suspect this is another season without contention.

Sure, the Mets are 4-2 after a 4-3 triumph yesterday. But that was constructed at home against the Padres and Marlins — two of the four NL teams Vegas forecasted to be worse than the Mets.

The Mets are trying to sell tickets and fill their fan base with optimism, so no one with an executive title is going to publicly declare yet another season of rebuilding in April. But this is the kind of team the Mets are: They double-switched out their No. 5 hitter in the fifth inning of a game they were trailing 3-0. That their No. 5 hitter was Mike Baxter explains their current condition of just not having enough quality players.

So does the fact that Laffey was starting. If you want to criticize the Mets’ front office, then blast away for not having a better Plan B behind such fragile commodities as Johan Santana and Shaun Marcum — especially because they never were going to rush Wheeler.

The Marlins, deploying essentially a Triple-A lineup, went 10-for-21 with a walk, hit by pitch and sacrifice bunt against Laffey. That they scored just three runs accentuated what a miserable offense they have, especially with Giancarlo Stanton in a funk (0-for-3, two strikeouts against Laffey).

I know the Citi fans want to see Wheeler. Heck, I would have loved to see Wheeler (Baseball America’s No. 11 prospect) versus Fernandez (No. 5), but I am going to take Mets executives’ word for it that Wheeler still has polishing to do in the minors. And also see the logic in not allowing Wheeler to accumulate service time toward arbitration and free agency prematurely when seventy-something wins again seems all but pre-determined.

Instead, the Mets are still playing for a future when they envision Wheeler (and, perhaps, Rafael Montero), joining Jon Niese and Matt Harvey in a rotation that is the backbone for sustained contention. Of course, this is not being done in a vacuum. The Marlins have Fernandez, the Braves have Julio Teheran and the Nationals have Stephen Strasburg, still just 24.

As Davis said with a shake of his head about Fernandez, “We’re probably going to see him a lot now.”

Indeed — right or wrong — the Marlins broke the seal on their best pitching prospect. The Mets continue to incubate theirs in Las Vegas.

The arms race is on in the NL East. For the Mets in 2013, it is the most important race of all.