Brodie Van Wagenen Keeps Getting Worse
So, you might ask yourself, how could the general manager who traded away Jarred Kelenic along with three other prospects who have hit top 100 prospect lists to finish double digits out of first place possibly get worse?
Well, he hired a manager in Carlos Beltran and fired him before Beltran even managed one game. Van Wagenen would claim he had no idea the Astros were doing anything despite teams making complaints, Van Wagenen being a player agent, and his being good friends with now former Astros manager AJ Hinch.
While claiming his learning what happened was the reason for the decision, he would still trade two prospects to obtain Jake Marisnick AFTER Mike Fiers went public. Somehow, Van Wagenen has an issue with the Astros did, but not when it came to parting with more prospects to make this a bottom six farm system.
It should be noted that in addition to parting with prospects, the Mets are paying Marisnick more than what players like Billy Hamilton, Juan Lagares, and Kevin Pillar will make in 2020. Of course, anyone who read the market of an over abundance of glove first center fielders should’ve anticipated that.
Of course, part of being able to gauge the market is to actively be part of the market.
According to Zack Wheeler, that wasn’t the case with him. As he told Greg Joyce of the New York Post, when he came back to the Mets in free agency, “It was basically just crickets when I did.”
Zack Wheeler told @GJoyce9 of The Post he’s not surprised he never heard back from the Mets last December before signing his new contract. Why wasn’t he surprised? “Because it’s them,” he said. “It’s how they roll.”
— Mike Puma (@NYPost_Mets) February 13, 2020
This isn’t new. This is how the Mets do business. We all know this, and time and again, we’ve seen this coupled with a slight at the player. We’ve already seen that with Van Wagenen making overtures the Mets didn’t value him as high as the Phillies did.
Now, in his own small and petty way, he made things worse saying, “We helped him parlay two good half-seasons over the last five years into $118 million.”
Petty, ironic, and wrong.
The problem with @GMBVW is he even gets the easy stuff hopelessly wrong. He could’ve said:
It’s unfortunate Zack has some hard feelings about leaving the Mets. We were obviously disappointed we were not able to keep him a Met for life, but that’s the downside of free agency.
1/
— Mets Daddy (@MetsDaddy2013) February 14, 2020
Putting all the stupidity and falsehoods in Van Wagenen’s statements, lets just look at what he did.
He took the $23.6 million per year Wheeler is making, and he gave it to Rick Porcello (worst AL ERA), Michael Wacha (bum shoulder), and Dellin Betances (one appearance). Their combined 1.3 WAR was dwarfed by Wheeler’s 4.1.
That’s besides the fact Wheeler was very well worth the money, had other offers for higher, and those teams believed the Mets weren’t getting the most out of their great pitchers partially due to their poor analytical approach.
As an aside, the texting, chair throwing, no ifs, come get us GM, has been trying to oversell the Mets big second half, and now, he’s maligning someone for having big second halves. Even better, Van Wagenen is able to sell that second half because of Wheeler.
In the end, Van Wagenen just continues to make everything worse. Fortunately, Sandy Alderson left him with so much talent, not even Van Wagenen can stand in the way of this team winning no matter how much he tries.
Well, that’s when he actually tries. As Wheeler will tell you, he doesn’t. That’s unless you’re a former client like Jed Lowrie, who no one knows if he’ll play again.
I think you’re just looking for some clicks and attention, Metsdaddy, amplifying Brodie despite the good job he’s doing.
I have no problem with Brodie’s response to Wheeler. None. Wheeler deserved it for his inappropriate comments. And Brodie as GM, and former agent, threaded that needle perfectly.
Other than the huge Kelenic mistake, I think Brodie’s doing pretty good job.
Ten games over .500 in his first season as GM.
The Jettison of Beltran when he proved to behave in 2017 so opposite his reputation on which he was hired as much as his astute knowledge of the game.
His subsequent pivot to an in-house beloved in Rojas with astute knowledge of the game culled from other experiences, is looking like good choice early in the process.
Lowrie – Played in 150+ games each of 2017 and 2018, 1,325 PA’s, OPS’s ocer .800 before signed to 2 yr, 10 mil.
As for Marisnick, he’s an athlete and fit defensive machine, with footspeed equal to Rosario per Statcast. Great help on on defense and the bases.
He’s also a former consensus, Top 100 prospect, still young enough to turn it around offensively a live up to that rating should he reduce K’s and alter plate approach.
Marisnik the man owned up to his behavior in Houston, and chastised himself more so than any player involved in that. I totally respect that growth as person and accountability in what is big life lesson about standing up to wrong.
I love the depth Brodie added with Wacha and Porcello, determined bounce back candidates with some concrete history of success including CY Young, all star game, Playoff MVP and World Series ring.
Lagares – Been there done that. And defense and speed on the decline. Footspeed, 28.0/sec
Billy Hamilton – career .623 OPS. and .564 last season.
Kevin Pillar – Foot speed down to 28.0/sec
Marisnick – 29.2/sec, same as Amed Rosario, the fastest Mets.
I love the way Brodie is transforming this organization into a new age analytics, technology, scientifically, detail-oriented, coaching and teaching,, modern science machine, collaboration, with a uniform system now in place in majors and minors.
I think this is a 95 – win team, and look forward to getting that started on the field. The players are so excited, everyone’s pulling from same rope with high confidence embracing lesson learned last season – and that includes Brodie.
Brodie has been objectively bad, and a team who is supposedly new age is horrible analytically
Correction, re: Lowrie – meant to write 2 yr deal, 10 mil per.
John – Great as always. One other point, Brodie also did not re-hire the best manager in the Mets system since Gil Hodges. A manager that had the team play solid fundamental baseball, run the bases aggressively, hit against the shift, manufacture runs, and lead the league in defense while winning a championship. Brodie let him go because”he was not his guy”. Then this spring he says he learned last year that little things make the difference between winning and losing. Well they did the little things in Brooklyn but Fonzie still was not brought back. To me, this was Brodie’s biggest mistake.
I don’t think Brodie has done that badly. Jared Kellenic has yet to do anything and maybe never will. Top prospects often flop. I pretty much agree with LongTmeFan1.
I do believe this though. If the Astro’s scandal had never broken and Beltran was still the manager, the Mets would be doing some of that stuff this coming season. I think Brodie was somewhat aware of what Beltran had done before he hired him. Carlos had a reputation for deciphering what other teams were doing and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of that stuff went on when he was a Yankee.
No one can reasonably believe BVW hadn’t been that bad.