We’ve learned over the course of the last year that Fred Wilpon is no longer rich enough to own a New York City baseball franchise. Now he’s proving that he’s not smart enough, either.

Wilpon’s comments about Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and David Wright in The New Yorker are unconscionable and completely self-defeating.

It’s one thing to have a bad baseball team, which he acknowledges in a story largely aimed as a profile of his  financial rise in real estate. It’s another to openly and brazenly devalue his best baseball assets.

Wilpon, who will have a season-ticket revolt on his hands when Reyes is dealt away or leaves as a free agent at the end of the season, had to be stupefied to hear Wilpon say, “He thinks he’s going to get Carl Crawford money,” referring to the Red Sox’ signing of Crawford to a seven-year $142 million contract. “He’s had everything wrong with him. He won’t get it.”

Wilpon clearly doesn’t

Then there’s Beltran, who everyone knows is on borrowed time with the Mets in the last year of a seven-year contract and on knees that have been a chronic problem. The Mets should trade Belran, who is playing well and going to get the team some young pieces in return. But what does Wilpon do to inflate Beltran’s value?

He says, “We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on that one series (2004 postseason),” referring to himself and the seven-year  $119 million contract he paid Beltran. “He’s sixty-five to seventy per cent of what he was.”

That’s quite a strategy.

And still, there are Wilpon’s remarks about David Wright, calling the Mets third baseman “a really good kid … a very good player … not a superstar.”

Wright also happens to be the face of the franchise.

We thought that Wilpon’s kiddy, Jeff, was the root of the Mets problem, but I guess we’re learning together that the Mets problem is the guy who gave Jeff the keys to the kingdom.