Reese Kaplan -- BVW -- Baseball Victories Wanted!

About ten days ago word filtered out that previous frontrunners for the Mets then-open GM position, Doug Melvin and Kim Ng, were no longer under consideration.  That left two men standing for the vacancy, the Tampa Bay Rays’ wunderkind Chaim Bloom and latecomer to the process, agent Brodie Van Wagenen.  In an almost unanimous cry from the fans and the media, Bloom was the man everyone wanted in that role.  So naturally the Mets chose Van Wagenen.

Upon first glance there were indeed issues.  There was the whole conflict-of-interest thing since BVW represents several Mets major and minor league players.  To me, that was just so much noise as it’s not an unprecedented move.  Former player and agent Dave Stewart went from the ranks of representing players to being in charge of a front office.  It didn’t rip a hole in the space-time continuum.  It can be done.

Then came the issue of front office experience.  Given the Mets’ predilection for favoring people long in the tooth.  That was why most speculated Melvin would be the inevitable choice given his many years of front office experience.  Of course, Sandy Alderson also had a long track record as a front office executive and we all see how that worked!

Still, the youth and 14 years of front office experience of 35-year-old Mr. Bloom seemed to be just what the doctor ordered to fix the ailing Mets.  Given the fact he worked to keep the Rays competitive while working with a miniscule budget, he seemed to fit the mold of what’s needed in the Wilpon regime. 

At the time BVW’s primary qualification is the fact that he plays golf with Jeff Wilpon and has a “good relationship” with the man.  Now, in addition to embracing experience over youth, the Mets also have a long track record of bringing in (or bringing back) resources who are familiar to them.  In this case, a man who in effect Jeff paid to be his friend (through contract negotiations) is the one who walked away with the brass ring. 

So right away the media frenzy about this Metsian decision was fierce.  Even in the middle of the ocean between Aruba and Panama the headlines were less than charitable.  How could they go with someone like this to take the reins?

Well, a little more than a week since being announced as the new GM, BVW has turned a lot of jeers into cheers.  He recognized that the hitting approach was all wrong and that providing a rookie manager an AL bench coach was flat-out wrong.  He is setting up 2^nd year manager Mickey Callaway with the opportunity to succeed rather than fail by giving him the right mix of people on his coaching staff. 

The walking “Ken Doll” has also proven himself to be fairly savvy working with the media in his short tenure at the top.  He’s made some statements that set them into a feeding frenzy (such as suggesting Tim Tebow could crack the opening day roster), but also gave tidbits that people liked hearing such as Pete Alonso getting a fair opportunity to win the 1^st base job outright in spring training. 

It’s early in the process of taking over the front office of a ballclub, but the early indications are during the GM meetings that BVW may not be the unmitigated disaster everyone anticipated he would be.  Of course, the official company line about why he was hired is that he told the Wilpons what they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear.  Maybe, maybe not.  Time will tell.  For now, the proof is in the pudding and it will be interesting to see how things play out for BVW and the Mets.  He allegedly has not had the conversation about payroll limitations so when Manny Machado, Bryce Harper, Yasmani Grandal, Craig Kimbrel and others are available without sacrificing any major or minor league player resoruces, many will be interested to see if the Mets are, to use fellow agent Scott Boras’ phrase, ready to shop for steak.