Give the Los Angeles Angels credit. With a narrow lead in an American League West race that looks early on to be every bit as close as was expected, they’re trying to play their best 25 men – something that, for a few reasons, is growing increasingly rare.

Yesterday, the Angels called up 22-year-old second baseman Howie Kendrick, one of the top prospects in all of baseball. A career .359 hitter in 292 minor league games entering this season, Kendrick began the year in Triple-A and in his first exposure to the league hit .386 with eight doubles, two home runs,and 11 runs scored in 16 games.

So the Angels, who have holes at the infield corners and whose DH, Tim Salmon, has hit well in limited duty but probably can’t play every day due to injuries, called Kendrick up with the plan of spotting him as needed. Manager Mike Scioscia said Kendrick will pinch hit a bit, DH a bit, and he’ll probably play some second as well. He’s also taking infield practice at third, where he hasn’t played before.

None of this should be very unusual, but the call-up is actually pretty remarkable by the standards of today’s game. Many teams – the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Oakland Athletics come to mind – leave top prospects in the minors longer than is necessary because major league service time determines when players become eligible for salary arbitration and free agency.

You can’t blame teams for working within the system to ensure they have their best players under controlled salaries through as much of their primes as possible, but it’s not ideal for the development of players or for fans who deserve to see the best their team is capable of putting on the field.

Moreover, the Angels have every excuse for keeping Kendrick in the minors. Their veteran second baseman, Adam Kennedy, is a fine player who’s off to a torrid start, hitting .355 with his usual sparkling defense. In addition, those 16 Triple-A games are all Kendrick has played above Double-A; no one would think anything of it if the Angels said he needed more experience before being promoted.

Instead, the team aggressively acted to get an excellent player on the roster. Kendrick’s rare but consistently displayed ability to hit for freakishly high averages makes him one of their better hitters, and they know it. If they have to DH him, teach him third on the fly, or have him stand on his head in the infield, they’re going to make sure he’s helping them in L.A. rather than in Salt Lake City. It’s the mark of an organization that cares about winning more than accounting. Decisions like this are a big part of why the Angels are consistently more successful than it looks like they’ll be going into the season.

Mets fans might be forgiven if all of this reminds them of their team’s current dilemma. With Carlos Beltran’s hamstring injury making it look as if he might wind up on the disabled list, many are looking past Endy Chavez and Victor Diaz as a combined replacement and focusing instead on center fielder Lastings Milledge, the team’s top prospect, who, at 21, is hitting .406 BA/.524 OBA/.625 SLG in his first exposure to Triple-A.

Manager Willie Randolph has even encouraged such talk by mentioning Milledge as a possible replacement should Beltran have to be replaced.

But this probably wouldn’t be such a hot idea. The Mets don’t get to play a DH, and they don’t have several holes that Milledge could fill, unless he learns how to play second base really quickly. Kendrick is coming up to join the team; Milledge would just be coming up for a quick sip of coffee before going back down to the minors. With him displaying such development in the minors, it may be better to leave well enough alone and leave him to keep at what he’s doing with an eye on a more permanent call-up later in the season.

What all this should remind Mets fans of is the use of quality minor league depth of the sort general manager Omar Minaya traded away – largely needlessly, I’d argue – this winter. Say Kendrick hits .360 in various roles and the Angels decide to start looking around for a taker for Kennedy so they can put their hot rookie in the lineup every day. With a glaring hole at second and a team in contention, the Mets are just the sort of team that could use a solid veteran like Kennedy. What, though, are they supposed to trade for him? Milledge? Top pitching prospect Mike Pelfrey? Billy Wagner? Mr. Met?

There are costs involved in trading young players for veterans, as Minaya did this winter, especially when you’re doing so not because you must but because you want to get the deal done. You lose those players, you lose any chance of finding yourself with a second baseman hitting .390 in Triple-A for whom you have to find room, and you lose the chance of trading him for something that comes up on the market. There’s a place between getting rid of all your second-tier prospects and holding onto all of them until they either become useful or worthless, and there’s a price associated with not finding that place, as the Mets may soon realize to their chagrin.

tmarchman@nysun.com