PHOENIX — First things first. The Mets must stop being baseball’s junkyard.

Sandy Alderson and the Mets can at least make it look like they have a clue if they stop taking on other team’s aging rejects and putting them on the field.

Mets fans had to endure a spring training and a good chunk of the season watching Adrian Gonzalez put up non-competitive at-bats.

Now it’s Jose Bautista’s turn to search for baseball’s fountain of youth, given games and at-bats by Alderson & Co.

Bautista was 0-for-2 in the Mets’ 7-3 loss to the Diamondbacks on Friday night at Chase Field, dropping his average to .182 as the Mets lost for the 12th time in 13 games. They haven’t scored four runs in a game since June 1 and are 10 games under .500.

“We were three ground balls to second base away from scoring five runs off their starter,’’ Mickey Callaway said of a night the Mets were 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position.

The Dodgers and Braves both gave up on Gonzalez, 36, but the dumpster-diving Mets had to give him his shot. It’s not only Mets players who pull hamstrings.

Their decision makers find a way to hamstring the organization by taking at-bats and giving them to players who are well past their prime and have been tossed aside by other teams.

After all those years with the Blue Jays, the Braves gave Bautista a shot and soon cut ties.
The Mets gave away 169 at-bats to A-Gone plus wasted valuable time in spring training trying to resurrect a career that was as dead as Jacob Marley.

Here was Gonzalez’s final slash line: .237/.299/.373.

Dominic Smith is finally here and the first baseman homered and doubled Friday night on his birthday.

Out with one, in with another.

Now the Mets are following up the Gonzalez mistake with another mistake. That’s what they do best and as a result we have Bautista, 37, getting valuable at-bats like in the 6-3 loss to the Diamondbacks on Thursday when with the game still close and Bautista struck out after being ahead in the count 3-0.

Bautista, like Gonzalez, was once a major league force. Those days are long gone. The Mets are allowing him to hang on even though the Blue Jays and the Braves gave up on him.

Let it go, Mets. Let veterans well past their prime go. The Mets are always looking for the cheap way out and can’t develop solutions to their problems.

This is a terrible indictment on the Mets organization that they have no outfielders they can pull up from the minors. Give the at-bats to Tim Tebow to satisfy Tebow Mania or make a deal for an outfielder.

Bautista is trying to cover for missing left fielder Yoenis Cespedes, who may never stay healthy again and still is not doing baseball activities in Port St. Lucie. What a mess.

The Mets’ greatest strength is now their greatest weakness.

Perhaps players such as Gonzalez and Bautista could work as pinch-hitters because of their experience but that is all. Another struggling veteran is Jose Reyes, who happens to be hitting .091 at Citi Field. Reyes is buried on Callaway’s bench but did pinch-hit Friday night, and doubled in the ninth and scored.

Get a read on the young players in your organization. Scout your team first, that is what the Yankees do so well.

Giving players well past their prime valuable at-bats sucks the life out of a ballclub.

The Yankees keep developing young stars. The Mets keep signing washed-up players who were once stars. It’s a terrible cycle. And you wonder why the Mets are 11-29 since May 1. During that time the Mets are hitting .215. They have scored all of 16 runs in their last 104 innings.

But that is not the worst part. Here is the worst part.

With the loss, making the Mets 0-4 on this trip, they have only one more win than the Marlins this year. Derek Jeter’s team is not even trying to win and sold off nearly all its players.

The truly bargain basement Mets keep recycling players who have nothing left.