What the clamor for the Mets to fire Buck Showalter leaves out

Hey, it worked for the Phillies and Blue Jays last season, so why won’t it solve all the Mets’ problems now?

One year ago, the underachieving Phillies fired Joe Girardi (22-29) and interim manager Rob Thomson (65-46) subsequently pressed all the right buttons on the way to a playoff berth and three series upsets to capture the National League pennant. On the other side of MLB, the middling Blue Jays fired Charlie Montoya (46-42) and turned to John Schneider (46-28), who piloted a return to the playoffs.

Now, a boisterous segment of Mets fans is convinced that firing Buck Showalter as soon as possible will provide the spark necessary to salvage a spiraling season.

Who can blame them when the $364 million World Series hopeful is now 6-16 in June (35-43 overall) — following Monday night’s 2-1 loss to the Brewers — and behind six teams for the final National League wild-card berth?

But here’s a warning: There is no bigger trap in sports fandom than taking an exception to a situation and applying it as the rule. And history is not in favor of Jeremy Hefner or Carlos Beltran or Mark DeRosa or any other coach, executive or analyst becoming interim manager and magically turning around the Mets.

From 1987-2009, only 19 of 80 teams that fired a manager around midseason recorded a winning percentage of .500 or better after the change — and only five made the playoffs, according to Bleacher Report.

The previous 183 midseason managerial changes — excluding those made in the first or last 20 games of a season, when it is too early to judge a team or too late to make a significant impact — resulted in about 24 percent of teams playing above .500 from thereon, the same report stated.

Has the pendulum swung more recently? Not really.

Over the past 10 seasons, a total of 21 replacement managers (at any point in a season) have a combined .473 winning percentage (603-671), according to data provided to Post Sports+ by Elias Sports Bureau.

Schneider (.622) and Thomson (.586) own the best and third-best winning percentages, respectively, of all managers who received more than a 22-game runway, with the 2018 Cardinals’ Mike Shildt (.594) sandwiched in between.

Consider this statistical evidence to be the counterbalance to the emotion of sports talk radio.

The WFAN airwaves lit up Monday with angry fans after the Mets blew a three-run eighth-inning lead in a rubber-game loss to the Phillies. One host, Boomer Esiason, said the Mets “look like they have no idea what they are doing, from the poor fielding to the poor base-running to the inability to come up with a big hit in a big moment,” and another, Brandon Tierney, said that Showalter “has lost the team and he’s lost the fan base.”

But defense-driven teams don’t beat Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Super Bowls just because the Ravens did it with Trent Dilfer in 2000.

And superstar-less teams don’t win NBA titles just because the Pistons beat the Lakers in 2004.

The Phillies’ and Blue Jays’ turnarounds don’t guarantee anything to the Mets, especially when considering the conveniently overlooked less-successful changes made last season by the Angels to Phil Nevin (46-60), the Rangers to Tony Beasley (17-31) and the White Sox to Miguel Cairo (18-16).

All that said, it is almost impossible to defend Showalter at this point.

The flaws on Showalter’s 22-year managerial record — his mismanagement of a bullpen, as one recurring example — have shown up this season without any of his reputable strengths.

Good fundamentals? The Mets lose track of the number of outs or let fly balls fall into no-man’s land because of a lack of communication or don’t hustle too often.

Showalter’s reluctance to commit to young prospects — limited playing time for Mark Vientos before he was sent back to Triple-A and routinely batting Francisco Alvarez in the No. 9 hole despite his 12 home runs in a power-starved lineup — doesn’t pass the smell test when rookie Corbin Carroll is an MVP candidate for the first-place Diamondbacks and rookie Elly De La Cruz was in the middle of a 12-game winning streak for the first-place Reds.

The hot seat is well justified. But Showalter’s case is still a bit of an outlier.

Of the 21 managers replaced in-season since 2013, only two led their teams to 90-plus wins in the previous season and both of them (Ron Washington and Tony La Russa) left for personal reasons. Managers who notch 101 wins like Showalter did last season don’t often get fired the next season because equity is banked and paid out in patience during struggles.

If the Mets’ struggles continue, owner Steve Cohen might have no choice but to throw fans a bone by changing managers.

But it’s unlikely to turn around the season. Rules still trump exceptions.

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Where there’s a Wilson, there’s a way

The Jets’ offseason additions of receivers Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb mostly have been praised.

After all, how could it be a negative to add two of Aaron Rodgers’ favorite receivers while simultaneously getting two players familiar with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett’s playbook?

How fortunate for Lazard and Cobb to be like extra coaches in the receiver room, translating Hackett’s words into actions to lessen the learning curve for Garrett Wilson, Mecole Hardman, Corey Davis, Denzel Mims and others not from the Packers’ tree.

Maybe they even share some unwritten tips about Rodgers’ preferences on route-running from one to the next.

All those ideas are true.

But what if it means Wilson gets fewer targets than one of the five-best receivers in the NFL should? What if it means that on fourth-and-6 with the game on the line, Rodgers defaults to his time-tested comfort level with Lazard or Cobb instead of Wilson?

The astute Wilson is aware of the potential to be left in the cold that comes with the Rodgers-Lazard-Cobb shared history.

“It puts the right pressure on the receiver room to pick up your stuff and make sure you are not slacking when you get home from the facility, make sure you are still learning off the field,” Wilson told Post Sports+ on Sunday at his football camp for 300 youngsters in New Jersey.

“We do have some dudes that know this offense. At the end of the day, they are helping us out and it’s been great to have them. They also have been a great piece for us to reach out to and make sure we are still learning. But it’s putting the right amount of pressure on us.”

Rodgers’ distaste for breaking in new receivers was seen in the Packers’ high rate of retention over the years, his request to reacquire Cobb after the Packers lost him in free agency and his struggles getting on the same page with youngsters last season.

Granted, Wilson’s talent level could trump all past issues.

Rodgers is no fool: Throwing the ball to your best player is a winning formula. And the two seemed to have good chemistry working together in OTAs, after which Rodgers said Wilson soon could surpass another longtime Rodgers favorite, Davante Adams, as the NFL’s best receiver.

The Harden sweepstakes

Instead of a stock quote carefully crafted to say nothing, here is a suggestion for what either the 76ers or Rockets should include in the coming announcement that the team signed James Harden.

“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”

Forget the written welcome statement. We might actually believe that the general manager who wins the reported battle for Harden spoke those words when NBA free agency negotiations begin later this week.

How else do you explain that the 76ers are considering offering a four-year, $210 million max contract to a player who shot a Ben Simmons-like 3-of-11 and finished with nine points in a Game 7 loss to the Celtics?

Harden, who has a career-long reputation for coming up small in the playoffs, had two 40-point games in the series, but averaged 13.4 points on 25.3 percent shooting from the floor in the other five games.

Why would the 76ers want to run it back? Well, what are they if he leaves? A one-man show in danger of wasting a year of oft-injured MVP center Joel Embiid’s prime by not pairing him with a suitable running mate in a star-driven league? A franchise that wasted two first-round picks traded to the Nets for Harden?

If free agency is otherwise highlighted by Jerami Grant and Fred VanVleet, the 76ers have to fear that any plan besides retaining Harden is going to lead to a step backwards. Two straight Eastern Conference semifinals exits from the Harden-Embiid pairing is still better than the grim years of “The Process.”

On the other hand, the Rockets’ pursuit of a Harden reunion — he spent eight seasons in Houston — is unforgivable. It should be easier for Jennifer Aniston to look past Brad Pitt’s cheating. Or Yankees fans to forget Jack McDowell’s middle-finger salute and subsequent playoff choke.

This is the same star who beefed with Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul when the Rockets were trying to get over the top, right?

The same star who had multiple verbal confrontations with teammates — and threw the ball at one during practice — in his final days with the Rockets, right?

The same star who showed up out of shape and forced his trade out of town (to Brooklyn), turning the franchise from a contender with eight straight playoff berths into a laughingstock with a .250 winning percentage over the past three seasons, right?

The Rockets aren’t one star player away from competing atop the Western Conference. So, if it’s not about winning, is their free-agent interest about making a profit?

Are there really Rockets fans who want to buy tickets and merchandise for the Harden show again?

There is no more appealing (or fresh) way to spend a league-high $50.7 million in salary-cap space than renewing faith in Harden to…actually show up and put in effort?

If not…the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.

Even when he wears a bushy beard and travels before his 3-point shot?