NEW YORK — Impossible as this was to accomplish, following the hated Wilpons as he did, Steve Cohen has managed to turn the Mets into the laughingstock of baseball. We’re talking equal owner incompetence here, the only difference between the two being Cohen’s willingness to spend money — if only anybody would take it.

I’ve already lost count of the dizzying number of people who have turned down the Mets’ baseball operations/general manager jobs so far, at least two of them from the Brewers alone — David Stearns (who the Mets were denied permission to talk to) and GM Matt Arnold, who declined to be interviewed — but it’s become beyond embarrassing. Theo Epstein, Billy Beane, Giants GM Scott Harris, Cardinals GM Michael Girsch, Dodgers assistant GM Brandon Gomes, they’ve all said no, as Cohen and his search team headed up by Sandy Alderson and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie seemingly keep digging deeper and deeper to the bottom of the barrel to find someone — anyone — who will say yes.

There was one highly decorated baseball man — Brian Sabean — who was said to have been interested in at least talking to the Mets. But according to inside Mets sources, Cohen flatly rejected the 65-year-old former three-time world championship Giants GM because he thought he’d been away from baseball too long — even though Sabean is still actively working for the Giants as executive vice president. A neutral observer from another club said to me last week: “What the Mets desperately need is an adult in the room over there — which would’ve been a guy like Sabean, who’s accomplished beyond all others.” But after watching this Met s--- show from afar, you can be sure whatever interest Sabean might possibly have had is now nil. In the years to come, Sabean may yet be coming east — not to Citi Field but Cooperstown.

When Beane declined to be interviewed by the Mets he cited family considerations and insisted it had nothing to do with Cohen. And yet, as it turned out, he preferred staying in Oakland, knowing that A’s owner John Fisher would be ordering another payroll purge that will result in Beane likely having to trade more of his star players, in particular first baseman Matt Olson and third baseman Matt Chapman, this winter. That alone was enough for Bob Melvin, Beane’s longtime manager, to bail out of Oakland for San Diego on Thursday. Despite four division titles and three manager of the year awards, Melvin, 60, just wants a chance to finally get to the World Series — which wasn’t going to happen in Oakland — and it was therefore commendable that Beane and A’s GM David Forst let him walk with a year on his contract without demanding any compensation from the Padres.

By the way, lest we forget, the Mets also need a new manager, but one of the best in the game is now suddenly off the market, apparently before he ever was on.

It’s a wonder where the Mets’ daily adventure goes from here for a Baseball ops chief and a GM. The names Peter Bendix and Josh Byrnes periodically surfaced in recent days. But Bendix, the Rays VP of Player Development, is also said to have no interest in the job, while Byrnes, currently a baseball ops VP with the Dodgers after previous front office stints with Cleveland, the Red Sox, Rockies, Diamondbacks and Padres, has a terrible reputation throughout baseball for undermining his superiors. There always is a reason why someone can fall out of favor in so many places.

What should be worrisome now for Mets fans is that Cohen, in his growing desperation, tells Alderson: “Just get me anyone who wants the damn job!” In that regard, disgraced former Astros baseball ops president Jeff Luhnow, who was thrown out of the game for a year after presiding over the Houston cheating scandal, is available, as is his assistant, the infamous Brandon Taubman, who was just reinstated after his suspension for his abusive tirade at female reporters during the 2019 Astros World Series celebration.

Cohen has been the Mets owner barely a year and, between the Jared Porter and Zack Scott sins, the Javy Baez/Kevin Pillar/Francisco Lindor “thumbs down to the fans” fiasco, the botched drafting of Vanderbilt pitcher Kumar Rocker, etc., the Mets culture has already taken a goodly share of hits under his stewardship. That’s why, in spite of all these turndowns, he still has to get these baseball ops and GM hires right. With each passing day it seems more assistant GM types, even further down their respective clubs’ food chains, are emerging as potential candidates — and what have any of them really accomplished?

So with his search committee clearly scrambling, allow me to offer, for no finder’s fee, a few names they probably haven’t considered all of whom with resumes of proven accomplishment: Dan Jennings, former Marlins GM and manager who is now special assistant and top pro scout for Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo; Blue Jays VP of Player Personnel Tony LaCava, Phillies VP/general manager Sam Fuld, A’s assistant GM Billy Owens, and former Dodgers GM Ned Colletti. To the best of my knowledge, none of them has an Ivy League education, but all of them are highly respected throughout the game for their baseball acumen and talent evaluating skill.

It could be none of them would want to work for Cohen either, but after all this mess he owes it to himself to start engaging with proven, accomplished baseball people. He might actually learn something about the game in which he’s cast his lot, but is having so much trouble keeping his team out of the headlines for all the wrong reasons.