Is $13 million a year too much for a great player? If the future plays out like the past, it probably isn’t.

One of the traits that mark a truly great player is uniqueness, and Pedro Martinez certainly qualifies, even leaving aside his taste in hairstyles and his propensity for carting about a 22-inch mascot. There isn’t a comparable player in baseball history.

A list of the 10 pitchers most statistically similar to Martinez through age 32 at www.baseballreference.com includes the likes of Lefty Grove and Jack Chesbro, who threw his last pitch in 1909.Toss out the players with whom Martinez has little in common and you’re left with a list of six of the best right-handed pitchers of the postwar era: Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden, Greg Maddux, Juan Marichal, Mike Mussina, and Tom Seaver. Anyone interested in peering into the future and seeing how Martinez might fare in Flushing could do worse than to examine how these players performed at a similar stage in their careers, the years when they were 33 through 36. Mussina should be taken out of the equation, because he will turn 36 next year. So should Gooden, who retired at 35 due to injury and ineffectiveness. This might provide a clue to Martinez’s future, but let’s assume for comparison’s sake that Pedro will still be pitching in 2008. To compare Martinez to Clemens, Maddux, Marichal, and Seaver is bound to be a bit misleading, of course. The latter two pitched in a very different run-scoring environment. Clemens and Seaver were of a very different physical type than Pedro, and that is a good reason to think he won’t age as well as they did. Martinez is a far greater strikeout pitcher than Maddux and Marichal, and that is a reason to think he’ll age better than they did.

Assuming Martinez doesn’t sustain a career-ending traumatic injury – and given that he’s been durable and effective for three years despite his shoulder problems, there’s not much reason to believe he will – this looks like a realistic guess at what the Mets will get out of Martinez over the next four years. He will certainly strike out many more batters than that, but otherwise the line looks fair – the 3.90 ERA he posted with the Red Sox in 2004 was equivalent, given park and league effects, to a 3.30 ERA at Shea Stadium.

The Mets would be pleased to get four such seasons out of Martinez, given the concerns about his health. Essentially, he would be replicating Al Leiter’s 2004 season, but with an extra inning every start.

Is that really worth $13 million a year? This is a fair question, but a few things should be kept in mind. First, this year was the worst he’s ever had as a starter, so assuming careful handling, a 3.30 ERA may even represent something close to his downside. Second, the above is an average. A 2.10 ERA in 2005 and a 4.30 in 2008 is feasible, and would be more valuable than two seasons with a 3.20 ERA. Third, Martinez’s value is tied to the market, and if Carl Pavano merits an investment of $11 million a year, then Pedro is worth at least $13 million.

There is also the fact that the Mets are paying for more than pitching. This may or may not be wise, as Martinez may or may not provide the various ancillary benefits that team management seems to think he will. But the Mets hope that Pedro’s undeniable charisma will change the image of what for the past three seasons has been little more than a dull, bland collection of washed up stars. This, the theory goes, will pay all sorts of dividends.

Between the intangible benefit of a public makeover, which by definition has a market value if teams are willing to pay for it (and they most certainly are), and the performance that can be expected, Martinez is not overpaid. He may even prove to be a bargain.

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There are, however, good reasons for Mets fans to be wary of the Martinez signing, and those have to do with the team’s long-term direction.

Speaking at yesterday’s press conference at Shea Stadium, General Manager Omar Minaya indicated that one of the biggest short-term benefit of signing Martinez will be an increased ability to attract premier free agents like Carlos Delgado. I happen to think this is a stretch – as Pedro himself has shown, top free agents generally go to the team willing to write the fattest paycheck. But it does raise an issue that may prove at least as important to the Mets organization as Martinez’s ERA.

Does this signing show that the team has finally come to understand the importance of investing in quality? Or is this merely the beginning of a new Steve Phillips era, which will see the Mets bring in declining veterans at high prices, to no discernible benefit?

The answer depends on how much credence one gives to ownership’s claims that GM Omar Minaya has been given total control of the franchise, and how much credit one is inclined to give Minaya. The collapse of the team under a pile of hideous contracts given to washed-up veterans was the fault, after all, not of Phillips, but of the Wilpon family. When Nelson Doubleday was still half-owner of the Mets, Phillips was a fine GM, acquiring players like John Olerud, Mike Piazza, and Al Leiter at bargain prices. It was only once the Wilpons got more intimately involved in baseball operations that the truly ridiculous moves began, blunders that continued under Jim Duquette.

The problem is that the Wilpons, even if they are ratcheting down their involvement in player acquisitions, reinforce Minaya’s worst tendencies. Given his track record as a GM in Montreal and the players he’s rumored to covet, these tendencies appear to include a lust for big-name players and an overvaluation of a player’s reputation and physical skills as opposed to his performance.

By all means, if Minaya wants to sign Carlos Delgado, the Wilpons should open up the checkbook. And there would be worse moves than acquiring Sammy Sosa or Moises Alou as a temporary stopgap in an outfield corner. What’s crucial is that these transactions be made for a specific and limited purpose, and with clear understandings of their drawbacks. Most important, Minaya and the Wilpons have to understand that their purpose is to set the Mets up as contenders in 2006. David Wright and Jose Reyes, not anyone the Mets can sign this off-season, are the spine of the franchise.

Unfortunately for Mets fans, the culture of ignorance and stupidity that has ruined the team starts at the top. Even giving Minaya all possible benefit of the doubt, there’s only so much one man can do to change that. It remains to be seen how things will play out, but fans can hardly be blamed for assuming the worst, even as they hope for the best.