During an 18-minute interview about his background, his life-changing offseason and his future, new Mets utilityman Zack Short spoke most passionately when a touchy subject arose.

“Don’t get me started,” Short said when asked about Aaron Rodgers possibly returning to Short’s beloved Jets this season. “I have spent so many — a disturbing amount of minutes, probably close to hours — thinking about this over the last 13 weeks. As a fan, I went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in the matter of what, 15 minutes [when Rodgers got hurt]?

“There are some funny pictures that my girlfriend took of me watching the game with my dog. And we’re all smiles in the first quarter. Literally — the game started at 8:20. By 8:31, it looks like I got hit by a bus.”

One of the newest Mets and technically the second major league player claimed by new club president David Stearns (preceded only by righty Penn Murfee, who then was waived and claimed by the Braves), Short is a massive Jets fan and native of Kingston.

He grew up making the roughly 90-mile trip south to Yankee Stadium to take in games because those tickets were easier for his family to get, though he rooted more for the Mets.

Short starred at Kingston High School and then Sacred Heart in Fairfield, Conn., where he was First Team All-NEC shortstop as a junior and a 17th-round pick of the Cubs in 2016.

Now listed at 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, Short rose through a few minor league systems by continuing to add to his résumé. A middle infielder, he began getting looks at third base in 2018. He was sent from the Cubs to the Tigers in 2020 in a swap for Cameron Maybin, and with his new team spent some time in the outfield beginning in 2021.

Short debuted with the Tigers that year and showed off a strong glove that can play anywhere, some speed, some pop and a bat that has not yet translated to the majors. In parts of three big-league seasons with Detroit, Short hit .174 with a .575 OPS.

It is possible Stearns sees more in Short’s offensive profile, which includes a strong knowledge of the strike zone (he has a lifetime .371 on-base percentage in the minors) and strength enough to have slugged 17 minor league homers in 2018.

The biggest challenge for Short last year — in which he did not hit much in 110 major league games — is he often entered as a late-inning, defensive replacement who would happen upon at-bats.

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“It’s a different game. It’s a different way to get your body ready, get your mind ready,” the righty-hitting Short said over the phone this week. “And even pinch-hitting, there were times where I pinch-hit in the fourth inning this year for what was a 12 o’clock game, and you’re kind of just getting warm. And then all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re up.’

“I think that is such a learning experience for me moving forward. … Learning how to do that in the big leagues is something that I really appreciate. I had a chance to take a step back and reflect on the year. It wasn’t as great … as I wanted it [to be]. But at the end of day, I really learned a role that a lot of people don’t really know how to do.”

After three years of bouncing up and down between the minors and majors with the Tigers, Short was designated for assignment this offseason and quickly picked up by Stearns, who otherwise had been tearing the Mets roster apart.

Short tried to process “a lot of emotions” at once in learning he would be leaving his good friends in Detroit but possibly heading home.

“I don’t want to say [my family was] more excited than I was — but, yes, they were all very excited,” Short said with a laugh. “‘You got picked up by the Mets!’ I was more so: This is very exciting, but it’s early in the offseason … and I still have to accept the fact that I was DFA’d.”

It is possible the 28-year-old, who is out of minor league options, becomes the heir to the non-tendered Luis Guillorme. Short brings more power and speed and the ability to play the outfield.

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The Mets added more potential competition to that role Wednesday when they signed Joey Wendle to a one-year, $2 million pact, though it is not difficult to imagine the veteran claiming the Opening Day third-base job, which would free up Short to plug in wherever he is needed in the field.

There will be plenty more roster moves for a team that Stearns is slowly building, and Short understands he is on the fringes. But he and his family are rooting for a short commute and for Short to get his chance at Citi Field, where he has not yet played.

“Definitely trying to be more consistent with the bat,” Short said from Norwalk, Conn., which is now his home and where he is training for next season. “I really think I have a really good thing going on right now. … Just to show in limited at-bats, limited showings this year that I can play at this level.

“I can do a lot of things at this level other than the statistics that show up on the back of a baseball card.”

The headliner among the Mets’ non-tender decisions belonged to Daniel Vogelbach, who had become the face of the underperforming 2023 club. Somewhat lost was the departure of Guillorme, who was about as popular as a poke-hitter can be.

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Guillorme hit just five home runs in six seasons with the Mets and was rarely an everyday option. But there are fewer players in all of baseball who are more fun to watch in the field — or in the dugout, for that matter, than Guillorme.

Twenty-nine years old and a free agent for the first time, Guillorme will land somewhere that values his sure glove and his bat-to-ball abilities.

Someday, though, it is easy to envision Guillorme transitioning to the coaching side. He has said he probably won’t pursue the everyday grind of a job in a major league dugout, but he would be a valuable coach who could work with an organization’s infielders sometime down the road.

Wherever Guillorme plays next season, he will be cheered when he visits Citi Field.

Remember the outcry about the number of Mets being hit by pitches last season, and whether their pitchers should return fire?

Enter Austin Adams, who might solve that (probably fictional) problem.

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The Mets signed Adams, a 32-year-old righty who pitched 24 games last season with the Diamondbacks, to a one-year, non-guaranteed split contract on Thursday.

The journeyman was excellent for most of May and June last season, struggled big-time in July and was struck by a Joc Pederson comebacker on Aug. 1, which fractured his ankle and ended his season.

But Adams has been known more for the batters he has hit, and not the other way around. In 2021, while with the Padres, the Tampa native set the record for most hit-batsmen in one season in the live era (going back to 1920). In just 52 ⅔ innings, Adams plunked 24 batters. For context, the previous record-holder was the Tigers’ Howard Ehmke, who needed 279 ⅔ innings to hit 23 batters in 1922.

Adams is a slider specialist — he threw his best pitch nearly 90 percent of the time last season — and while it is potent, it also clearly is hard to control.