PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Trust me, Omar Minaya is saying, and he has said it a lot over the winter and all through the spring. The New York Mets have enough pitching, their general manager is insisting. Yes, even though they failed to sign Barry Zito, and even though their bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka fell laughably short of Boston's, and even though Pedro Martinez won't pitch until August, if at all this season or this lifetime.

“The guys we decided to go with, they have a chance to get better,” Minaya says. “We're going to have enough pitching. Trust me.”

The heart wants to trust Minaya, but the mind can't get past this: This does not appear to be the starting rotation of a contender. It's true the Mets won 99 games last year and captured the National League East by 12 games and pushed the St. Louis Cardinals to seven games in the NLCS with essentially this rotation. But if this collection of pitchers is so good, why did Minaya try so hard to get someone else?

“I can tell you this,” Minaya says. “The guys we could have had as free agents (this winter), they're not better than the guys we have here. Trust me.”

Let's go down the list of the guys Minaya has here:

- Tom Glavine, 41 years old when he takes the mound on Opening Day, 290 career wins, including 15 last year. Crafty, veteran left-hander.

- Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez, a postseason legend from his days in the Bronx, but also 41 and an increasingly fragile guy who had a bout of arthritis this spring and keeps pulling muscles at inopportune times, like last October.

- John Maine, 25. Yet to spend an entire year in the big leagues.

- Oliver Perez, also 25. Went 3-13 with a 6.55 ERA last season, which he split between Pittsburgh and New York.

- And Mike Pelfrey, 23. The rookie.

It would look a lot better with Zito at the top, or Matsuzaka. But the Mets were outbid by miles on both. In Glavine and Hernandez, they feel they have two dependable veterans who - in baseball parlance - know how to win. In Maine and Perez they have two younger pitchers who pitched the games of their lives against the Cardinals last October, which the Mets hope will catapult them to solid seasons. And in Pelfrey, they have a top prospect ready to fulfill his promise.

“You have to remember,” Glavine said when asked about the Mets' rotation, “we had questions like these, if not even tougher ones, last spring. It was me and Pedro and three question marks.

“There are fewer question marks this time, and the answers are better.”

Sure enough, in 2006 the Mets' rotation was a revolving door of youngsters and retreads. No fewer than 13 pitchers started for them, including immortals like Dave Williams, Alay Soler, Geremi Gonzalez, Victor Zambrano and Jose Lima. And yet they still won 99 games and essentially had the division wrapped up by July - which turned out to be a bonus because it allowed a pitcher like Maine to gain experience without the intense pressure of a tight pennant race.

“We had some young arms who made some big strides,” catcher Paul Lo Duca said. “And then when (Maine and Perez) did what they did in October, you can't overstate how important that is for a young pitcher. That's a huge confidence boost going into a new season.”

And then there is The Great Pedro, he of the three Cy Young Awards and author of a handful of the greatest seasons ever by a pitcher. Martinez has resided in a parallel universe at Mets camp this spring as he rehabs from rotator cuff surgery, popping in and out of town, playing catch at ever-increasing distances, biding his time until he can get on a mound again.

“We think he's going to be back (this year) - in fact, we're very sure he's going to be back,” Minaya said of Martinez. “But we have to plan for the year thinking he's gone, and whatever he gives us is gravy.”