Watching the way the Mets have evolved this season, it’s become fairly clear that this team has the potential to become a perennial 90-win team as soon as next year. This year, with league-worst production from the right side of the infield, a disappointing season from Carlos Beltran, and a sketchy bullpen, the team looks like a fair bet to finish above .500 and perhaps even to win the wild card.

Next year, a return to form from Beltran, continued growth from David Wright and Jose Reyes, and an improved right side of the infield could make this one of the very best offenses in baseball.

The weak link, it would seem, is the starting rotation. At the top, Pedro Martinez easily ranks among the game’s absolute elite, and probably will for at least the next couple of years. After Martinez, things get dicier. Kris Benson (8-4, 3.54 ERA),Victor Zambrano (8-9, 4.00), and Tom Glavine (8-10,4.41), all of whom are expected back next year, have been respectable, but unspectacular. Is this really the foundation upon which a championship team can be built?

The short answer: Yes. The slightly longer answer is that it depends on how good the offense is, how good the bullpen is, and how good the defense is. If asked to carry the Mets the way the White Sox rotation carries their team, this group is going to fail, but as long as too much isn’t asked of them, they should be fine. The real answer is that they’re placeholders; the Mets have an exceptionally fine group of minor league starters, and in an ideal world Mike Pelfrey is going to have a great deal more to do with the long-term success of the Mets than Victor Zambrano.

Just looking at next year, the Mets should be fine. Martinez is obviously no concern. Benson has been surprisingly good this year, and while not dominant, has actually proved to be a very fine no. 2 starter. He ranks 13th in the league in the percentage of his starts that have been “quality”(6 or more innings,3 runs or fewer), right behind Dontrelle Willis and right ahead of John Smoltz. That sort of durability and reliability is what a team needs out of a no. 2.

Not far behind, at 24th in the league in quality start percentage, is Victor Zambrano. Like Benson, he’s not particularly sexy, but he gets the job done; he’s essentially a league-average pitcher good for 200 innings a year. It’s very easy to underestimate pitchers of this class; but if one considers that last year, all of 16 NL pitchers both threw 200 IP and allowed runs at or below the park adjusted league average, Zambrano’s value becomes a bit clearer. That Martinez, Benson, and Zambrano are all good bets to do both next year means the rotation is in much better shape than it seems.

The potential problems, such as they are, have to do with the back end of the rotation. Glavine is at this point a durable and slightly below average pitcher – if it was certain that he could be penciled in for 200 innings and a 4.50 ERA next year, that wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, he seems a decent bet to pitch 200 innings with something more like a 5.50 ERA.

Past Glavine, the Mets have plenty of solutions, with Jae Seo being the best. Unfortunately, as the Kaz Ishii experience has showed, the Mets aren’t necessarily to be trusted with putting their best pitchers on the hill.

This is worrisome because the pitchers who are probably going to be the best solutions to the Mets’ problems fit the Seo model – they’re young and lack overpowering stuff. It’s unlikely that both of the Mets’ best high-level prospects – soft-tossers Yusmeiro Petit (3.28 ERA,107/17 K/BB ratio in 101 2 /3 IP at Double-A) and Brian Bannister (3.58, 29/10 in 27 2 /3 IP at Triple-A) – will be ready to step into next year’s rotation right out of spring training, but it’s a good bet that one or both of them will by mid-season be a better option than Glavine or another veteran brought in for the back end of the rotation.

In the long term, it’s pitchers like Petit, Bannister, Phillip Humber (who just underwent Tommy John surgery), and Mike Pelfrey, this year’s first-round draft pick (he was ranked a the best pitcher in the draft by Baseball America) upon whom the Mets are going to have to rely.

In the short term, the Mets should be fine. Signing a free agent of the Benson/Zambrano class – someone like Florida’s A.J. Burnett – would be an excellent idea, giving the Mets a chance to implement the Cardinals’ “strength through depth” strategy: Leaving things open and giving the kids a shot in the hope of finding someone to grow along with the Wright/Reyes core wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Like everything else about the Mets, all that’s needed is already in place. From now on, it’s about the choices management makes.