Sandy Alderson will have to find new jokes.

After years of employing subtle humor to reinforce his limited spending power — such as the year he said he showed up at the GM meetings with a briefcase full of money (they were all fives) — the new Mets president can shop wherever he wants.

“Today, given what we want to achieve, it’s not about how much less we can get somebody for, it’s more about getting that somebody,” Alderson said Tuesday. “We now can emphasize the acquisition rather than the cost.”

To accentuate his point, Alderson, who served as GM for 7 ½ seasons under the previous ownership group headed by Fred Wilpon, mentioned reliever Brad Hand, who recently went unclaimed on waivers. The lefty, who was among the game’s best relievers in 2020, would have cost $10 million for the team that claimed him.

“If the timing would have been a little different, we might have jumped on that,” Alderson said. “Now is that a good deal? I don’t know. It’s probably overpaying a little bit, but who knows?”

Mets owner Steve Cohen said he expects to spend on the same level as other major-market clubs, but declined to put a number on the team’s potential payroll for next season. Cohen indicated the Mets would not spend like “drunken sailors.”

Alderson cited the team’s starting pitching and catching as primary areas of concern.

“Our pitching staff is thin,” he said. “Our depth at Double-A and Triple-A is thin or thinner. The bullpen has been inconsistent. We have needs behind the plate. Our team defense is [a concern] — and honestly, I will take some responsibility for the team defense as it exists today, from the emphasis that we put on offense years ago.

“A lot of things that we need to do, but there is a foundation there and I think if we can add the right pieces this year, and Steve has indicated we’ll have the opportunity to do that, we can be pretty good pretty quickly, and that’s my goal for 2021.”

Cohen, who runs a hedge fund, Point72 Asset Management, plans to remain in the background, yielding to Alderson and the front office on player acquisitions.

Cohen has told associates he expects to lose $400 million on the Mets over his first two years owning the team.

“As [Cohen] said, he’s got a day job and he probably needs that day job to pay for some of the potential losses we have with the Mets,” Alderson said. “So from my standpoint, that is a good thing.”