MLB

Mets need Bay to live up to big contract

Signing Jason Bay to a four- year contract was part of the wrongheaded way the Mets had operated, at least in Omar Minaya’s tenure.

The Mets essentially looked at what went wrong the previous season and then were willing to overpay to address that element while pretty much neglecting the rest of the roster.

For example, when they decided the 2008 season had gone wrong because of the bullpen, the Mets reacted by paying big dollars for Francisco Rodriguez and giving a big haul of prospects for J.J. Putz. When they could not get the ball out of their new stadium in 2009, the Mets’ response was to give Jason Bay the four-year contract no other team appeared ready to approach.

METS-ASTROS BOX SCORE

“Jason Bay was the compounding of a problem, that they kept spending their money poorly,” said an executive from another team. “They have to get to the mindset of not doing that [bleep] anymore.”

General manager Sandy Alderson was hired to distance the Mets from that [bleep]. He was empowered to institute a wiser way to use the payroll and to try to implement a more thorough/thoughtful way to construct organizational depth.

Yet, for now, Alderson’s administration is at the mercy of the mistakes enacted during the Minaya regime. So he has had to oversee the limping exchange of Carlos Beltran from center to right. He had to release Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez with the Mets eating $18 million. He has to worry about Francisco Rodriguez finishing 55 games, which would trigger a payroll-killing $17.5 million salary for 2012.

And, now, here comes Bay today; who has a chance to be yet another booby prize from the old administration. He is just a year and a month into a four-year, $66 million contract. He could not — as Mets executives promised — defy Citi Field’s dimensions in 2010, producing just six homers in 348 at-bats. He did not play the final two months last year after suffering a concussion and strained his ribcage this spring to land on the disabled list.

All in all, Bay’s signing is taking on all the earmarks of another Mets’ financial disaster, especially because his contract runs through 2013.

Yet there is this: The 2011 Mets kind of need Bay to, at least, approximate his power-hitting past. Because it already feels like these Mets have been eliminated in April, so deep is the pall around the team.

The Mets lost again last night to the NL Central last-place Astros, this time 4-3. In the you-can’t-believe-this-stuff department, the Mets did not score the tying run in the eighth with first and third and one out because Justin Turner struck out, the ball squirted away and Angel Pagan was thrown out at the plate trying to score. Jose Reyes was then doubled off of first in the ninth when Josh Thole popped out on a sacrifice attempt. An unreal four-out sequence.

So the Mets are now a major league-worst 5-13 and maybe there is no escape from this dread. But if they are going to be better, it probably falls on the Mets lineup outscoring the inadequacies of a rotation lacking a true No. 1 or 2 starter and a setup crew that is glum and glummer.

Here is a good time to remember that Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun was the only outfielder to hit more homers in 2008-09 than Bay’s 67. Forty of those came after Boston acquired Bay in July 2008; marrying his pull swing with the Green Monster.

“You can see how [Citi Field] could have an effect on anybody,” Houston manager Brad Mills said. But Mills added of Bay, “he can hit homers anywhere.”

Mills knows the player, admires the makeup of the man. Mills was Boston’s bench coach during Bay’s Red Sox stay and said he would be more comfortable if Bay were returning to the Mets tomorrow rather than for tonight’s Astros-Mets series finale.

“He’s the kind of a guy that can carry a team for a while,” Mills said. “I’ve seen that.”

Alderson and the Mets would love to see that, an expensive piece from the previous regime carrying the reeling Mets.

So Bay arrives to a bad situation asked to do what he could not last year, namely get the darn ball out of Citi Field.

One more chance for this organization to get out of the sick-Bay.

joel.sherman@nypost.com