So they’re really going to do this?

The Mets, who could infuse their ailing roster with depth and talent by selling high on Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler — and doing the same this winter with Noah Syndergaard if he can stay healthy through August and September — will stick to (and with) their guns as Tuesday afternoon’s non-waivers trade deadline passes by?

It looked quite feasible on Monday, and The Post has sympathy for the Mets’ reluctance to blow up their starting rotation after they worked and waited so long to see it come together and excel.

Yet if they go this way, they must add an essential companion step in order to justify such a short-term approach:

Emulate the Dodgers.

Not the current Dodgers, who teach a daily course in arbitrage and roster depth as they try to improve upon last year’s World Series loss. Nor the Dodgers of Fred Wilpon’s salad days, who led the way on integration and farm-system development to end their decades-long quest for a title. While both serve as fine role models for any club, the current Mets need to focus on a different era: 2012, when the Dodgers spent money like they were Richard Pryor in “Brewster’s Millions.”

Those Dodgers had been dragged down to a dark level by owner Frank McCourt’s financial and marital woes, both of which produced unsightly headlines that made the Wilpons’ Bernie Madoff fallout seem like a Disney movie in comparison. On the field, the Dodgers treaded water to the tunes of 80-82 in 2010 and 82-79 in 2011; however, their whole organization, most notably their farm system, suffered for the owner’s sins.

When McCourt liberated the Dodgers from his personal drama in the spring of ‘12, selling them for $2 billion to a group headed by Guggenheim Partners, the new owners decided that the Dodgers fans didn’t want to sit through a teardown. So they used their financial might as spackle like no baseball franchise had ever done previously.

That June, they signed veteran outfielder Andre Ethier to a five-year, $85 million extension and committed $42 million over seven years to Cuban free agent Yasiel Puig. That August, they acquired Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez from the Red Sox in an epic trade that added more than $250 million to their ledger. And that December, they landed free agent starting pitcher Zack Greinke for $147 million over six years.

Of this group, only Puig played in last year’s Fall Classic, the Dodgers’ first appearance there since 1988, and the Dodgers digested a lot of sunk costs in the process. Nevertheless, the spackle had done its job, helping the Dodgers win five straight National League West titles as the team gradually built up its base of young talent and cut its payroll.

Which brings us back to the present-day Mets, whose farm system ranks among baseball’s worst and who already boast of many cumbersome contracts. They aren’t switching owners,

much to the chagrin of many fans

. Can the Wilpons and Saul Katz switch their general aversion to hefty free-agent deals while empowering their next general manager to build a proverbial player-development machine?

Even if this free-agent class, once anticipated to be the best ever, has been worn thin by time, you’ll still find gems like shortstop Manny Machado (likely to surpass Giancarlo Stanton with the biggest contract ever), closer Craig Kimbrel, catcher Yasmani Grandal, center fielder A.J. Pollock and starting pitcher Patrick Corbin. Landing two of these guys would go a long way toward giving the Prodigal Four a competitive supporting cast.

You’re naturally skeptical that these owners will deploy this strategy. They have surprised in the recent past, ponying up the dough for Yoenis Cespedes (whose serious injury issues should serve as a lesson not to avoid these mega-contracts, but rather how to create contingency plans around them). A spending spree this winter would represent a bigger surprise, granted.

I think many Mets fans would accept a teardown now in return for future optimism. What none would accept, though, is a repeat of this year and last, of a decent talent base without necessary reinforcements.

So either let the arms go or make it worth their while to stay. Choosing the middle ground would have the Mets dodging angry feedback once again.