Sandy Alderson spoke to reporters Tuesday afternoon and addressed multiple topics, one of which being his spending plans for this offseason.

“I think that first of all, sequentially, we want to see how the players we have do the next several weeks… And then we’ll assess what we need, we think, in addition to what we already have,” Alderson said.

“As far as the payroll’s concerned, the payroll ended up being closer to like $155 (million) this year, which was beyond what we had expected to spend this year.”

Mets fans are certainly clamoring for some big spending on the right free agents this offseason, but Alderson doesn’t seem to be chomping at the bit to do that. Of course, he can only work within the budget the Wilpons allocate for him.

“I’m certainly not sitting here and willing to say, ‘OK, it’s going to be at least as high as it was (this) year,’ but we expect to be a competitive team next year,” Alderson continued.

“I know that is going to depend a lot on the health of our pitching staff, particularly our starting pitching and so forth. But the fact that we had so many dollars coming off the books, we recognized, and a good percentage of that, at this point undetermined, certainly will be reinvested in the payroll, but I can’t give you a specific number.”

To sum that up, Alderson gave an ambiguous answer to a question, as is expected of a general manager, but there are some important things to take away from what he said.

The Mets have around $65 million coming off the books this offseason, and while Alderson hinted that the Mets might be willing to spend this offseason, we shouldn’t take that to mean another $155 million payroll in 2018.

Coming into this season, the Mets were fresh off two consecutive playoff appearances. They spent what they thought needed to get them back to the playoffs for a third year.

Going into next season, however, the Mets could be looking in the rear-view mirror at a 90-loss season. The situation is very different than the last two offseasons.

Hopefully this is all a prelude to Alderson spending what needs to be spent this offseason to put the Mets in a good position to compete in 2018.

In all likelihood, though, that won’t mean breaking the bank on a top free agent signing. The obvious caveat is no matter how much you spend, none of it matters if half your team is injured.

With $49 million committed to Yoenis Cespedes and David Wright, and arbitration increases for Jeurys Familia, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Wilmer Flores, and others, the Mets have roughly $90 million already committed to 2018.

The Mets also have a $8.5 million option on Asdrubal Cabrera which will bring them closer to a $100 million payroll before adding any new players.