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The Mets are closing in on their next head of baseball operations.
Mega-agent Brodie Van Wagenen, the co-head of CAA’s baseball division, is the team’s pick to lead the front office, according to an industry source, as the Mets move to fill the vacancy by next week.
As of Friday evening, no deal was complete, but the sides have begun contract negotiations. Any announcement by the team will likely have to wait until the World Series concludes — though technically the Mets could hold a press conference on Monday’s off day, if the Fall Classic is still going.
Chaim Bloom, the Rays’ senior VP of baseball operations, is the other finalist for the job and remains a candidate. But team owner Fred Wilpon and COO Jeff Wilpon are focused on the 44-year-old Van Wagenen, a Stanford graduate, whose clients have included current Mets players Jacob deGrom, Yoenis Cespedes, Noah Syndergaard, Todd Frazier, Brandon Nimmo and Jason Vargas, among others.
Earlier in the week, Brewers senior adviser Doug Melvin — who was viewed as the favorite to succeed Sandy Alderson — was removed from consideration. Though Van Wagenen lacks baseball operations experience, it’s expected he would retain assistant general manager John Ricco and special assistants Omar Minaya and J.P. Ricciardi to serve as his insulation.
Van Wagenen will be walking a tightrope with his former clients who have confided in him over the years. Among the organization’s biggest issues is deGrom, who is under club control through the 2020 season. Would Van Wagenen’s presence in the front office get the Mets a discount? Or would Van Wagenen potentially use privileged information he might have gleaned from the right-hander to use against him in negotiations?
Former major league pitcher Dave Stewart is among the few who made the transition from agent to general manager. But Stewart, who worked in the Diamondbacks front office under Tony La Russa, didn’t have a concentration of former clients on his team as Van Wagenen would face.
Van Wagenen also would face the challenge of negotiating with agents who have become his adversaries over the years. Among them could be Scott Boras, who earlier in the week told The Post that it’s a conflict of interest for an agent to switch sides and join a front office. Boras said he has received multiple opportunities to run organizations over the years, but each time declined out of respect to his clients.
An industry source indicated Van Wagenen’s candidacy didn’t go full-throttle until last week, after it became evident that esteemed candidates such as Indians GM Mike Chernoff and former Red Sox Ben Cherington wouldn’t pursue the position. Van Wagenen otherwise faced the risk of pursuing the job, getting rejected and then watching top clients leave.
Others the Mets initially considered for the job included MLB executive Kim Ng, Cardinals director of player development Gary LaRocque, Nationals special assistant De Jon Watson and Tigers VP of player development Dave Littlefield.
But the Mets failed to attract top candidates for the job, according to sources, in part because of the perception that Jeff Wilpon won’t grant full autonomy to his head of baseball operations. The Mets also have lagged behind other organizations in their implementation of analytics, which could have deterred several younger candidates from pursuing the job.
The 35-year-old Bloom, the No. 2 official in Tampa Bay’s front office, was among the younger executives willing to interview with the team. Bloom, a Yale graduate, is highly regarded for helping keep a small-payroll team competitive in the treacherous AL East.
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