Brodie Van Wagenen

Brodie Van Wagenen
Born: March 9, 1974 in Encino, CA

This is the text from the back of his Topps autograph card (pictured here): "A unique blend of business professionalism, deep baseball knowledge and a love for the game he developed as a child, Van Wagenen was a celebrated hire as the New York Mets GM in 2018. Just 44 at the time, Brodie had been working as co-head of Creative Artists Agency's baseball division, where his clients included Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Yoenis Cespedes. The Sports Business Journal named the former Stanford U. outfielder one of the 40 best young talents in the sports industry in 2012."

My two cents: One massively unpopular trade and one of the most spectacularly unproductive free agent signings in history spelled his doom as GM, as soon as Steve Cohen took over the ownership of the team. The trade, of course, was the one that brought Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to the Mets, at the cost of top prospect Jarred Kelenic as well as a box full of spare parts. The free agent deal was for Jed Lowrie, who cost the Mets 20 million dollars and delivered zero base hits for them over the course of two seasons. To be fair to Brodie, he did oversee two brilliant drafts, where he obtained first-round talents in the second and third rounds, signing pitchers nobody thought he could sign. Given time, he might have proved to be a shrewd team-builder, but the Mets' overall performance for those two years ended up costing him his job, in the impatient New York climate.

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This is a list of the Brodie Van Wagenen cards that I already have in my collection. If you have any cards that are not listed here, and you are willing to donate or trade them, contact me at Rounding Third. Items that are struck through are no longer a part of the Rounding Third collection, having been sold for charity.

2019 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autographs #FFA-BVW (autographed)

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