The hot stove has seemingly been turned off because the Wilpons have failed to pay the electric bill.

Brandon Nimmo said he randomly ran into Travis d’Arnaud at breakfast while both were on their honeymoons in Hawaii. Kevin Plawecki said he FaceTimes with Jacob deGrom during the offseason. The Mets’ offseason stove is hot.

— James Wagner (@ByJamesWagner) December 7, 2017

I stand corrected.

As you may have seen, I started an Evan Longoria rumor because somebody has to save us from all of the reports of players coming that aren’t coming and from stories about Brandon Nimmo’s honeymoon. So I must be a part of that Hot Stove Illuminati Mind Meld, because Evan Longoria to the Mets has gotten some traction on the interwebs. So why not see if lightning can strike again? I’ve crafted some more rumors that I don’t necessarily approve of to help you through this Cold Toaster Season. We’ll see if anybody else out there is listening.

Disclaimer: The author of these rumors do not endorse or authorize these transactions.

The Rumor:

Mets sign: RP Wade Davis

Why The Mets Would Do This: Because the Evan Longoria trade fell through, and the Mets aren’t going after any starting pitchers. (Well if we can’t get Otani, we’re packing up and going home.) A Mets thing is to help out the starting rotation by getting more bullpen arms, so why not get the best one out there and call it a day? Jeurys Familia isn’t the sure thing he was in 2015, and A.J. Ramos’ nine million dollar slider could be filet mignon or it could be frozen liver. Davis would give them the eighth and seventh inning respectively, and enable the Mets to justify having three fifths of their rotation never face a batter a third time. Since the Mets will probably not upgrade anywhere else because they will hope that Juan Lagares’ new swing will make him J.D. martinez, Wilmer Flores will get second base and grow range, and that Travis d’Arnaud’s great September against mediocre prospects on bad teams is an indicator of him being a star in 2018 instead of just being the latest Monorail Man from the Simpsons. (Mono-raaaaaaail … MONO-RAAAAAAAIL … that ball’s into center field.)

Why Wade Davis Would Do This: Because he needs a job. And because the Astros decide they have enough bullpen arms in house.

Why You Will Wind Up Hating This Signing: Because this team has no money, and yet more than $31 million will be invested on the last three innings of the game. That’s a lot of pressure on Robert Gsellman to go six innings.

Why I Will Wind Up Hating This Signing: Because I know at some point that Davis is going to be on the disabled list with “general body soreness” and Ray Ramirez is going to pop out from behind the clubhouse wall through a square panel like Laugh In and say “Hey Wade … shhhhh … try this.” Then he’ll hand Davis a Simply Fit board which he’ll promptly slip on and bash his head open on the floor. He’ll remain on the disabled list for an additional three months with “visible brain matter”.

The Rumor:

Mets acquire: UT Ben Zobrist

Cubs acquire: RP Hansel Robles or whatever the Mets can scrape off the bottom of their shoes.

Why The Mets Would Do This: Because Brian Dozier fell through, Neil Walker decided that he’s not coming back to this circus, and the Mets realized that Ian Kinsler is a 36-year-old broken down malcontent. Zobrist would not only play a lot of second base, but would be deployed anywhere on the diamond. And you know the Mets love their utility players. If they could have eight utility players that switched around the diamond like a high school volleyball team, they would do it.

Why the Cubs Would Do This: Zobrist is slated to make $29 million over the next two seasons, and between Javy Baez, Ian Happ, and Albert Almora, the wiggle room they have to get Zobrist at-bats is shrinking. Just to lose the money, they’d trade him for a song. Besides, that’s $29 million they could spend on Yu Darvish, Alex Cobb, Shohei Otani …

Why You Will Wind Up Hating This Trade: Because you’re Chris Russo and you hate all those advance statistics that Zobrist excels at. Or because $29 million is a lot to pay for a utility player. I mean … it’s not, really. It’s not a lot of money for a 37-year-old utility player/World Champion. But we’ve been brainwashed by ownership to believe that wanting to pay more than minimum wage for Mike Trout is wasteful.

Why I Will Wind Up Hating This Trade: Because he was so moved by his first World Championship, which was at the Mets’ expense, that he named his child “Royal”. That puts him in the category of Larry Jones, right? Commemorating beating the Mets by naming a child? I don’t know if I can live with a guy on the Mets that basically named his child “We Beat You”.

The Rumor:

Mets acquire: CF Dexter Fowler

Cardinals acquire: RP A.J. Ramos and SS Milton Ramos some other shortstop to replace Aledmys Diaz because Milton Ramos is long gone.

Why The Mets Would Do This:  Every other target falls through, season ticket sales are down, and the subset known as #MetsTwitter becomes enraged enough to send gifs of dumpster fires to Jeff Wilpon’s super secret twitter account spurring the Mets to desperate action. And  Dexter Fowler is a 3.4 WAR player offensively.

Why the Cardinals Would Do This: Because they are going to use their voodoo devil magic to convince Giancarlo Stanton that St. Louis is heaven on earth and that fried ravioli is somehow healthy. (Stephen Piscotty will move to center field and become Willie McGee.) And because Dexter Fowler is a -1.6 WAR player defensively.

Why You Will Wind Up Hating This Trade: Because all we need is another suspect defender up the middle Amed Rosario can’t cover three positions at once. The second best defender the Mets will have up the middle in 2018 would be the pitcher, and that’s even if Bartolo Colon comes back.

Why I Will Wind Up Hating This Trade: Because if you haven’t figured it out already, I hate every trade. And because every time I think of Dexter Fowler, I think of the end of a long doubleheader in Citi Field when a guy in a Ray Knight jersey heckled Fowler mercilessly with “yo mama” jokes for five innings before finally causing another fan to flip out and then getting thrown out of the game. I don’t think I can deal with an entire season of that.

I hope I don’t have to keep coming up with these after the Winter Meetings.