Brodie Van Wagenen Has Drafted Great
Starting with the Robinson Cano/Jarred Kelenic trade, Brodie Van Wagenen’s trades have been bad to disastrous.
With Jeurys Familia and Jed Lowrie, you have to say the bad signings far outweighs the good signings (Justin Wilson).
Good and productive players like Travis d’Arnaud have been released while the Mets stuck by players like Adeiny Hechavarria for far too long.
Between the hiring and firing of Carlos Beltran, throwing chairs at Mickey Callaway, and his ducking the media, you really have to wonder if Van Wagenen has the judgment, temperament, or even the ability to be a General Manager.
But then, there are the drafts.
Van Wagenen has been bold and daring. He’s taken full advantage of Sandy Anderson holdovers like Tommy Tanous and Marc Tramuta to both scout and draft real high end talent in the draft.
In 2019, the Mets drafted two first round talents in Brett Baty and Matthew Allan. With respect to Allan, he had dropped in the draft due to signability concerns. Not only did the Mets get Allan in the third round, but they were also able to sign him for a bonus lower than many expected.
This year, the Mets did it again, which is an even more impressive feat. It’s more impressive because this draft was only five rounds giving the Mets a tighter margin of error.
That didn’t matter as not only did the Mets draft Pete Crow-Armstrong in the first round, but they also drafted J.T. Ginn in the second round. Ginn is a first round talent who was actually a Dodgers first round pick two years ago. Ginn wouldn’t sign with the Dodgers, but he did with the Mets. Adding Isaiah Greene to this draft class was a coup.
If Van Wagenen did nothing but manage the draft, he’d arguably be the best General Manager in the game. For that matter, if Van Wagenen did nothing but draft, the Mets would have the top farm system in the game, and they’d be primed for another 1980s like run, only this time with two Wild Cards essentially insuring the Mets would be a perennial postseason team.
That said, give credit where credit is due. Van Wagenen has been bold, daring, and more than able to get the job done when it comes to the draft. If he could somehow harness those skills in other aspects of the job, perhaps he could justify sticking around past the eventual Wilpon sale of the team.
Because its the Mets, I fully expect Cano to hit 240 this year, but then bash three homers in a key post-season game (provided there is a post-season); which will forever serve as the counter argument to this trade. Kelenic looks like the goods, but lets see him hit MLB pitching before we anoint this as The Worst Mets Trade Ever (Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Amos Otis, Kevin Mitchell, Rick Aguilera, and Heath Bell all say hi).
Back to the OP, I agree that the past two drafts have looked very promising on the surface. Alan, Baty (great name for a baseball player BTW), PCA, Ginn, and Greene are potentially great additions to the farm. Add them to Mauricio and Alvarez and you have the makings of a solid, albeit young system. The twin dangers are prospect flame out and a win-now mentality.
The Seaver trade was the worst trade ever. Kelenic can rival it.
And remember, when evaluating trades, you need to look at what the value of the player was at the time of the deal. For the sake of comparison, Kelenic’s value was on a different stratosphere from Ryan’s.
He fired Fonzie. The first Mets manager since Gil Hodges that showed you can win with defense, aggressive base running, and scoring runs on outs. It was a thing of beauty to watch last year in Brooklyn and they won the league Championship! Fonzie should have been put in charge of the entire minor league system after that – nope, farmed out to an “ambassador” position. Kelenic? At least Brodie could say that he was going for broke in 2019. Fonzie? No excuse. Complete malfeasance.
No, there’s no defending trading Kelenic