Brodie Van Wagenen of Los Angeles with Ryan Zimmerman. Ryan and Van Wagenen structured $100m contract while he was agent in Los Angeles.
Van Wagenen’s most notable clients being Ryan Zimmerman, Robinson Cano, Jacob deGrom, and Yoenis Cespedes. The Ryan Zimmerman was a transformational deal. Ryan and Van Wagenen structured a 6 year, $100 million deal.
NEW YORK (PRWEB) October 29, 2018
The New York Post confirmed, Brodie Van Wagenen has been named the next general manager for the MLB New York Mets program.
Brodie Van Wagenen of Los Angeles, California is making quite a transition as he becomes the next New York Mets General Manager. For many years, Van Wagenen worked with Ken Rosenthal as co-heads of the MLB division of a sports agency firm. Ken and Van Wagenen would structure some of the best deals in baseball for many of their MLB clients. Van Wagenen’s most notable clients being Ryan Zimmerman, Robinson Cano, Jacob deGrom, and Yoenis Cespedes. The Ryan Zimmerman was a transformational deal. Ryan and Van Wagenen structured a 6 year, $100 million deal. This was huge for the MLB and baseball in general. In 2016, Van Wagenen even put together one of the most unique contracts in baseball history. He was able to structure the conversion of Tim Tebow from NFL quarterback onto one of the New York Mets AA farm teams.
Brodie Van Wagenen and the Mets have a great relationship as seen by prior player deals, but a move like this is quite rare for an MLB team of the New York Mets stature to make. Van Wagenen really impressed the team over the years. A close source around the deal notes that the talks began organically in the summer and became more real in recent months.
Ken will continue to keep the division Van Wagenen grew so well over the years going. Ken and Van Wagenen built quite a legacy in Los Angeles and have been consistently in the top one or two MLB agent firms in terms of players and contract size. In order for the move to complete with the New York Mets, Van Wagenen will need to sever all ties to his prior firm in Los Angeles. In order to do this, Van Wagenen will likely spend the weekend and next few days in Los Angeles to retain their strong player relationships.
While the move from an agent to becoming a general manager of a professional team is rare, it is not unheard of. One recent example includes D. Kenneth Stewart of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Kenneth made the switch from agent to D-backs GM in 2014. That particular example was not as fruitful as the team and Stewart parted ways a couple years later.
The NBA has also featured another recent success, also from Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Lakers hired Rob Pelinka in 2017. He was most notably known as Kobe Bryant’s long time agent and fit well as the Lakers general manager. Van Wagenen will hope to have a similar result as this one as this has worked out well thus far and he played a pivotal role in bringing over Lebron James and a number of other players over the offseason.
The agent mentality can provide expertize and a different skillset that can be quite helpful. Van Wagenen beat out a lot of qualified candidates for the GM job with the New York Mets. Given his history of hustle and life long experience and love for baseball, this should be a great move for him. For more information on his background, please see included Van Wagenen’s LinkedIn profile.
