What did he do?  In the middle of a very long article (I don't know how long it is in the actual magazine, but printed out off the internet it's 21 pages) about why he is a victim of Bernard Madoff and not as responsible as Irving Picard says he is, Wilpon pretty much sabotaged the Mets' only hope this year - that of getting tremendous trade value out of the team's chips.

Jose Reyes?  Not worth the money he'll demand on the open market, says Wilpon. ("Carl Crawford money", according to Wilpon).  So when the time comes to trade Reyes (who will no way come back to a team owned by Wilpon after this, so the Mets are left with no choice but to trade him), teams will offer less than they would have yesterday because "he's had everything wrong with him".  Even the man who owns the team he currently plays for says so.

Carlos Beltran?  Well, he wasn't coming back anyway.  So the "schmuck who paid him" can probably get away with insulting him about the called third strike that ended the Mets' championship hopes in 2006, but why also put in print that he's "65-to-70 per cent of what he was"?  Good luck getting teams to overbid on him.  Teams might slice their offers by 65-to-70 per cent.

David Wright?  The face of the franchise?  "Not a superstar."  Fantastic.  The one guy actually under contract beyond this year doesn't have the faith of the owner.  The team may still be able to add pieces to play around him...but he can't be happy playing for the owner.  Can he?

Listen...it may be true that David Wright isn't a superstar, and maybe needs the right complementary players to play on a World Series-winning team.  And everyone knows Jose Reyes "has had everything wrong with him" and Beltran is nowhere near the player he was 7 years ago.  And I fault Beltran as much as anyone for the called third strike - that wasn't the only instance in his Mets career that he showed a horrendous deficiency in recognizing and being able to hit a curveball.

But it's one thing for me to say it or write it, and for the owner of the team to say it.

Especially in a piece that is supposed to be good public relations.

It doesn't matter that the baseball comments - all mentioned within one of those 21 pages and taking up less than a page of space - are such a small part of the entire article.  The fact that he said them makes Wilpon look almost as clueless as he claims to be about his involvement with Madoff.

To be honest, I'm more inclined to believe his side of the story after reading his comments in this article.  It gave good background about Wilpon's finances.  I needed to read that information.  It's a tragic story for all involved.  It's heart-breaking to think about what Jeff Wilpon's reaction must have been when he heard about Mark Madoff's death.

But I'm less inclined than ever to help Fred Wilpon make money as owner of the Mets.  And I think he's isolated way more Mets fans with this article than he's gained back.

What do you do when ownership is the problem?

I'm really torn.  I can't root for Fred Wilpon to have success. (And I'll be even more angry after he attempts to 'fix' this by saying he didn't know his comments about those players while watching the game were on the record, or they were taken out of context...)

You might say there have been other owners who have done this sort of thing - George Steinbrenner, for example.  That's different.  That was his personality.  That's the way he went about his business. He knew what he was doing.

Fred Wilpon, it is becoming more and more clear, has absolutely no idea what he is doing.  It's not just Beltran, Reyes, and Wright - how do other players react in this situation?  With someone like Steinbrenner, you kind of know what you're getting - a volatile type of personality.

With Fred Wilpon? I think we're getting a clearer picture.

Clueless ownership.  And no sign that things are going to get better.