MLB

Greinke pact won’t alter Mets’ plans for Dickey

Zack Greinke’s bar-raising contract with the Dodgers hasn’t noticeably raised other clubs’ interest in R.A. Dickey. But that says more about how much the Mets want for their chatty knuckleballer than anything else.

And it’s why the safe bet still calls for Dickey to at least start the 2013 season in a Mets uniform.

The Rangers, the apparent runners-up in the sweepstakes that concluded Saturday when Greinke agreed to a six-year, $147-million pact with the ultra-rich Dodgers, are interested in adding Dickey to their starting rotation. However, when the Rangers and Mets conversed about Dickey, the Mets asked for a rich package of young players featuring corner player Mike Olt and at least one other high-ceiling young player, an industry source said.

With common ground nowhere close, the Rangers had not countered that proposal as of yesterday afternoon.

So continues a familiar theme in the Dickey sweepstakes. Certainly, it’s standard operating procedure for teams to whine about asking prices. A failure to seriously engage in trade discussions, however — as seems to be the case with teams like the Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Royals, Blue Jays and Yankees in addition to Rangers — reflects a significant disparity between the Mets’ ask on Dickey and the buyers’ desires.

Which, as we’ve noted before, is the Mets’ right. But they can’t expect to pull off a trade this way.

The Mets feel they own the leverage here, with no bad options. If they can’t find a team willing to pay “a ton” (one opposing executive’s phrase) for Dickey, and if Dickey won’t lower his already reasonable contract demands — the Mets want him to come down to two years for about $20 million in 2014 and 2015, and the right-hander agrees with the years but not with the dollars — they will just pay him $5 million next year and see how things play out.

Olt, 24, serves as a good example of what the Mets want in return for Dickey. A sandwich-round pick by the Rangers in the 2010 amateur draft, he is a natural third baseman who — blocked by Adrian Beltre in Texas — spent time at first base and right field as well as third when the Rangers called him up to the big leagues in August. His bat is regarded as elite, and he put up a .977 OPS (.398 on-base percentage, .579 slugging percentage) with 28 homers in 354 at-bats for Double-A Frisco last season.

As noted above, the Rangers have not offered Olt, or anyone else, for Dickey. As The Post’s Joel Sherman reported last week, the Mets want more than one player for Dickey, so even if Texas agreed to give up Olt for Dickey, a one-for-one deal wouldn’t get it done.

The Mets are shopping Dickey like an elite player yet aren’t willing to pay him like one. Is that hypocritical? No. That’s business. The Mets appreciate how popular Dickey is with the team’s fan base and also know just how difficult it is to project what sort of pitcher he will be over the next three seasons, especially when the team clearly needs more time to build a full-fledged contender.

Bringing back Dickey just for next year, and seeing how 2013 unfolds, might be the safest and smartest maneuver. If Greinke’s decision doesn’t change other teams’ minds on Dickey — and the Mets could give the market a few more days to adjust to the Greinke news — then it shouldn’t change the Mets’ minds, either.