Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl

New York Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon takes pointed shots at some of his marquee players in an extensive article in The New Yorker mostly designed to highlight his rags-to-riches tale.

The embattled owner, who became ensnared in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and is now being sued for more than $1 billion by the trustee trying to recover funds for Madoff victims, tells the magazine:

• Shortstop Jose Reyes will not be getting a super-huge contract from the Mets. “He thinks he’s going to get Carl Crawford money,” Wilpon said, referring to Crawford’s seven-year, $142 million contract with the Boston Red Sox. “He’s had everything wrong with him. He won’t get it.”

 

• On right fielder Carlos Beltran, Wilpon refers to Beltran’s huge postseason with the Houston Astrosin 2004 and says: “We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on that one series. He’s sixty-five to seventy percent of what he was.”

 

• About David Wright: “Really good kid. A very good player. Not a superstar.”

• On whether the franchise might be snakebit, Wilpon makes another pointed Beltran reference. Author Jeffrey Toobin writes: “At one point, I mentioned to Wilpon the theory that the Mets might be cursed. He gave a sort of half laugh, and said, ‘You mean’ — and then pantomimed a checked swing of the bat. Any Mets fan (I am one) would understand the reference. The Mets took the 2006 National League Championship Series to a seventh game against the Cardinals.”

 

In the game Wilpon refers to, Beltran took a called third strike from Adam Wainwright to end it.

Wilpon apparently does like first baseman Ike Davis.

“Good hitter,” Wilpon says of Davis. “S—– team. Good hitter. … We’re snakebitten, baby.”

WRITTEN BY Adam Rubin covers the Mets for ESPNNewYork.com/Follow Adam Rubin on Twitter: @AdamRubinESPN

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