On the wake of the opener of a three-game series between the New York Mets and Reds at Citi Field, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson had a press conference to talk about the state of the Mets, including various topics, such as one that is on Mets fans' minds: a forthcoming trade to help a beleaguered offense.

Going into Friday's game, the Mets were tied with the Milwaukee Brewers as the worst-hitting team in the National League with a .237 average and the second-worst slugging percentage at .365, ahead of only the Philadelphia Phillies.

MLB.com's Anthony DiComo quoted Alderson discussing in a press conference his desire to add some offense. Alderson insisted that he is willing to “overpay” to acquire a bat to aid the Mets, but there simply is nothing to bid on right now.

"I would characterize us as somewhat aggressive,” Alderson said Friday. “… Are we prepared to overpay? Me, personally, yeah, I’m prepared to overpay. But there has to be something to overpay for.

“You get to the point where you’re prepared, based on the short term, to maybe do a little more than you’d otherwise do,” the GM added. “But there still has to be something out there that’s attractive that you really believe is going to help your team.

“But I don’t think we’re at the point where, No. 1, there are that many people out there that are going to benefit us. And, No. 2, seven days ago -- or whatever it was -- we’re 36-30. We just took two from Toronto. Everything is looking up. And a week later it’s panic city. And I’m not whistling past the graveyard, either. But we continue to try to improve the team. We continue to try to put the best team out there that we can.”

Alderson added that the move needs to count because the Mets are not going to make a series of acquisitions. Someone like the Marlin's Martin Prado or A's Ben Zobrist might be in the Mets radars, but the price to the Mets might not be feasible to them. The Mets fear that other teams (such as the Yankees) might out-bid them.

“I’ve talked about having money available at the deadline,” he said. “But we’re not going to be making two, three, four, five moves. So we’ve got to be sure -- not sure, but we’ve got to be at least somewhat confident -- that what we’re going to do here is going to help us.

“And, of course, that’s a function of what somebody wants and so forth. We’re not looking at somebody who is going to be a starter for us the rest of the season necessarily. But it has to be somebody who fits that we think can actually help us either short term or a little bit longer term. But right now. I think, there’s less of an emphasis in our minds in the trade market on the long term.”

It sounds like Alderson is passing time, and it is still early regardless of what the media or fan base cares about. Logically, the Mets will wait until the end of the All-Star break. At that time, they will get a better feel of the market as teams will slip out of contention or the Mets themselves will slip out of contention.

They will also have a more accurate idea of David Wright's timeframe to comeback -- if he is to comeback or get shutdown. 

Alderson basically said manager Terry Collins will need to win with what he has right now, and they will wait for injured players to return to see if that will give the team a boost. Injuries to players such as Daniel Murphy and Travis d'Arnaud have hurt them, and it remains to be seen if the Mets can keep these two on the field. 

“Obviously we haven’t hit,” Alderson said. “We’ve pitched reasonably well in most games. We haven’t hit at all over the last week or so. We’re hopeful that [Daniel] Murphy will be back and that will change some things. We continue to look externally. But what we have to remember, and am reminded of in conversations, is it’s not even July 1. Even take a team maybe 10 days ago that was completely out of the race and maybe has started to play better. [It’s] reluctant to make a move this early before the trade deadline. That’s not to say that every team is in that situation.

“But if you were to go back and look and say to yourself, ‘OK, so how many teams are out of it right now -- three, four?’ And then there has to be a match from a positional standpoint as well as a potential standpoint. So right now it’s a thin market. So I think the bottom line, at least for the time being, until something breaks, we need to get the job done with what we have.”

The offense might not be the only thing they want to upgrade at this point; the defense looks to get realigned as well. There has been talk when Murphy comes back about his playing third base. Wilmer Flores will shift to second base, and Ruben Tejada will go back to his original position of shortstop.

Alderson also touched on the status of team captain David Wright and really had no answers about when Wright will be available -- end of July? Maybe August? Never?

Wright remains in Los Angeles, getting treatment for the narrowing of the spinal cavity in his lower back. Every Monday he gets evaluated by Dr. Robert Watkins and staff, and he waits to be cleared to begin baseball activity. But Alderson does not know when that will occur. Wright will still need a significant amount of time to get into game shape once he is cleared, too. This time will also include rehab games.

Alderson called it "ambiguous" when Wright might return.

"I think he's making progress with his rehab, but he hasn't transitioned to baseball activity," Alderson said Friday. "I honestly can't tell you on Monday when I talk to him again that he will have transitioned to baseball activity. It's something where we just have to wait and see."

Alderson also announced the Mets where going to go with a six-man rotation, and prospect LHP Steven Matz will be called up to fill the bill in the sixth spot. The reasoning for their six-man plan is to protect their young starters Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Matt Harvey, who is coming off Tommy John surgery.

"We have to be fairly strict and disciplined about this, because we could get to the end of the season and some of our guys simply won't have any capacity left in our reasonable judgment," Alderson said.

"In the case of two -- maybe three -- of our starters, we have some serious concerns about the overall volume," Alderson said. "As I've said before, there's no science to this. But common sense tells us that there are certain levels of innings over the course of a season -- whether it's following a Tommy John surgery or just based on what a pitcher has done the prior season. It makes sense for us to have a general awareness of where those innings totals are going.

"So the combination of wanting to get Steven into the rotation and, primarily, dealing with some of the other limitations we face with some of our other starters, we're going to go to a six-man rotation. I expect that will continue for a period of time and then we'll see where it goes."

This is a very good idea because it will not only prevent the overuse of Matt Harvey, but it will pace the rest of the young staff for the future. Of course, the Mets tried this earlier with Dillon Gee, who wanted no part of it and is now in Triple-A.