Mets can learn a lot from their three All-Stars

It could have been even worse and it should have been much better. That is how to interpret the Mets’ lost season in terms of the news that three of their players had been named All-Stars. Bottom line, it was a nice ending to an awful week. Finally, some relief.

Kudos to Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil and Jacob deGrom for salvaging something from one of the worst seven-day periods in Mets memory, which is saying something. A quick unhappy recap: the churlish cursing and confronting of Newsday’s Tim Healey, the two-take apology by Mickey Callaway, the defiant non-apology by Jason Vargas, and seven defeats in seven days, almost all of which were caused by inept bullpen work.

Credit to the Major League Baseball players for voting the three Mets on to the National League squad and for not holding their club’s record (and behavior) against them.

“That is a big deal. It has been a tough week, there’s no denying that. We haven’t won a game in a week, so to get some good news is always welcome,” Callaway said before his team’s 8-5 victory over the Braves on Sunday night.

The All-Star announcements immediately called to mind what this year might have looked like in Flushing if new general manager Brodie Van Wagenen had followed through on his reported hell-bent intention to include McNeil in the disastrous Robinson Cano-and-Edwin Diaz trade with Seattle.

“It was definitely an interesting offseason, with that whole trade situation,” McNeil said. “But I’m very, very grateful to be here. I’m very happy to be a Met and I hope I’m a Met for a long time.”

Imagine how uninspiring these three months would have been if the Mets had done what many teams do: held a top prospect such as Alonso in the minors to save a year of service time (give the GM a good mark for that one).

But the fact is, the strong performances by those two and many solid outings by deGrom have been wasted. Wasted by Van Wagenen’s failure to build a bullpen, by pitching gurus Callaway and ousted pitching coach Dave Eiland failing to prevent virtually the entire staff from regressing, by the struggles of Diaz and fellow relievers.

To quote from last Monday’s semi-mea culpa, everyone can learn from this. Everyone involved with the Mets can learn from all three of their All-Stars. They can learn that progress is a steady-as-she-goes business. You keep your head down and your mouth shut and keep plugging away.

McNeil was a 12th-round draft pick who was in Double-A at this time last year. DeGrom once was a ninth-round pick who had been a college shortstop. Alonso, a second-round draft choice, hit only 16 homers in 82 games for Class A St. Lucie two years ago and was not considered a good enough fielder to play first base in the majors.

“A lot of hard work was done to get me in this situation,” Alonso said. “A lot of hard work and preparation throughout my entire life. I’m just really happy that everything has come together. This is a dream. That’s it. It’s a dream.”

You know who can learn the most from the workmanlike approach of the three Mets All-Stars? Van Wagenen himself. As a rookie executive, the former agent tried to make a big splash with his first trade. The problem is that sometimes a big splash is the sound right before something sinks.

The heck with such swinging for the fences. Now is the time to roll up the sleeves and do the hard labor of building piece by piece around the three centerpieces. Eat some contract money and deal the likes of Vargas, Todd Frazier and Zack Wheeler for real players — preferably relievers — rather than salary relief.

Do that and maybe next season will be more compelling after the All-Star break. “Last year, I was on the outside looking in,” Alonso said. “It’s crazy. It’s crazy what a year can do.”