The winter GM meetings are underway, and former GM Jim Bowden of The Athletic has rumors. He’s got proposals, too, He’s even got trades, but we’ll stick to a single signing for now. One of  Bowden’s wishlist items has the New York Mets signing Framber Valdez to a seven-year deal for $210 million. The fit is there to some extent. Everyone knows the Mets need an ace, so the question is whether they do a big signing, a significant trade or find a placeholder. Valdez would meet that need short-term, but after that he becomes something of a liability because of the length of Bowden’s proposed deal. Do the Mets need an ace this bad? Not if they want to base their pitching staff on young, cost-controlled pitching, which they already have in abundance.It’s reasonable to expect Valdez to be an ace-level pitcher for the next year or two, but after that his performance will decline. By year three there’s a good chance he would be a mid-rotation starter, and the Mets probably don’t want to think about what those last two or three years would look like. Meanwhile, the Mets young pitchers showed signs of coming of age  quite rapidly as they all showed considerable promise last year. Rookie phenom Nolan McLean looked like an ace in waiting, while fellow pitcher Brandon Sproat showed that he’s ready to at least get a shot in the rotation. Only pitcher Jonah Tong had performances that indicated he probably needs time at Triple A, but his stuff definitely plays if the Mets are willing to be patient with him. Usually the words “patients” and “Mets” don’t belong in the same sentence, but this time around they do. The Mets tried the impatient ways of owner Steve Cohen, and the result was a second-half collapse and a divide clubhouse. This is one of the biggest reasons why the Mets shouldn’t sign Valdez. He’s add another expensive variable to the pitching equations, and the Mets already have plenty of expensive variables. It’s time to try a different kind of roster building, which means it’s time to trust Stearns. His two moves so far have been solid, and Stearns is also looking to add character guys. We have no idea who that’s going to be at the top of the rotation, but it’s not a pitcher who’s still going to be making big money when he’s almost 40.