NEW YORK — Baseball’s silly season has begun. If you want to believe all the media pundits, new owner Steve Cohen is going to go on a massive spending spree for free agents and the Mets and Yankees are the leading contenders in the trade bidding for Cleveland shortstop Francisco Lindor.

As for the former, now that he’s officially cleaned house of Brodie Van Wagenen’s Mets front office and turned over the baseball operations to Sandy Alderson, sources close to Cohen say his intentions of loading up on premium free agents are greatly exaggerated.

On the trade market, Lindor — both in the cost of talent in a trade and a megabucks $300 million long-term contract extension for a shortstop neither of them really needs — makes little sense for the Yankees or the Mets. While Gleyber Torres might not be their ideal shortstop of the future, there is no way Hal Steinbrenner is going to approve another $300 million outlay on a player, and the Yankees have far more pressing needs anyway. In addition to starting pitching, Brian Cashman needs to come to terms with the fact they will never win a championship with Gary Sanchez behind the plate.

At 26, Lindor could conceivably be a cornerstone player for the Mets. But they are well fortified at shortstop with Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez, plus 19-year-old prospect Ronny Mauricio (on whom they spent $2.1 million in international bonus money) a few years down the road. Indeed, Cohen would be better off spending his money in other places than shortstop. But with the exception of Connecticut native George Springer — a multitalented center fielder the new Mets owner is known to greatly admire — this may not be the year. The Mets also need a catcher, but if Cohen signs Springer, for a lot of reasons he’s not likely to spend another couple hundred million on J.T. Realmuto.

It’ll be interesting to see where the market goes for James McCann, the clear second-best free agent catcher. McCann is coming off two excellent seasons, both with the bat and handling pitchers, for the White Sox. He’d be a great fit with either the Yankees or Mets, but with a dearth of available quality catchers, he may also be one of the few free agents to get a multi-year big bucks deal in this expected cold market.

Here’s the disincentive for both Cohen and Hal Steinbrenner. The Yankees and Mets lost close to $200 million each this year and there is no certainty about anything for next year. There could very well be another government shutdown, which is why the free-agent market is going to be very slow developing this winter. There are also going to be a record amount of non-tenders and, as a result, an army of bargain hunters in the GM ranks.

As the source close to Cohen said: “What people are overlooking here is that Steve made his billions on Wall Street finding value. He’s not stupid. He’s just spent $2.4 billion on a team that lost $150 million. Plus, in Sandy Alderson, he’s got a guy who’s also made a career of finding value and who hates big spending on free agents.”

In that respect, Cohen should probably hope the oft-injured Marcus Stroman turns down the Mets’ $18.9 million qualifying offer. There is no way Stroman is worth anywhere close to $18.9M and that money could be put to much better use elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the Yankees’ top priority is to re-sign DJ LeMahieu. After that, Cashman is more likely to be scouring the free agents and non-tenders to fill his starting pitching needs. As for the possibility of $30 million or more for a one-year Trevor Bauer deal, there is no way Steinbrenner would approve the spending, and there’s also said to be bad blood between Gerrit Cole and the likely NL Cy Young winner dating back to their time as teammates at UCLA. Bauer has said he’s very amenable to going back to the Reds, But much as Reds owner Bob Castellini wants to win, it’s doubtful, with the pandemic losses and the uncertainty about 2021, that he’ll be able to retain Bauer even on a one-year deal. Right now the betting money is on the southern California native signing with the Padres.

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