Brodie Van Wagenen and the Mets have reached a deal for the powerful agent to switch jobs and become the team’s general manager.
The Post’s Joel Sherman reported Sunday that the two sides finalized the terms of the contract, with minor paperwork still to be completed. The earliest the Mets would hold a news conference would be Tuesday at Citi Field.
The move had been expected, with Van Wagenen beating out Tampa Bay senior vice president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom.
Turning to the 44-year-old Van Wagenen to replace Sandy Alderson is a bold and risky move for the Mets. Van Wagenen has spent his career negotiating contracts for players — including current Mets Jacob deGrom, Yoenis Cespedes and Todd Frazier — and will now be on the other side.
It’s a potential conflict of interest for Van Wagenen, who was the head of CAA, and it’s drawn criticism from other agents, including Scott Boras. MLBPA executive director Tony Clark expressed concern about the potential hire.
“I will simply suggest to you that our membership is paying attention,” Clark said during the World Series.
In February, Van Wagenen created a stir when free agency was moving at a historically slow pace and he wrote on Twitter: “There is a rising tide among players for radical change. A fight is brewing.”
Van Wagenen is expected to have the title of general manager and be the top person in the front office, which still is expected to include assistant GM John Ricco, as well as special assistants Omar Minaya and J.P. Ricciardi.
Among the challenges Van Wagenen will have to meet will be dealing with deGrom, who is under team control through the 2020 season. The Mets figure to be unlikely to trade the NL Cy Young candidate and could explore giving the right-hander a contract extension coming off his best season.
According to The Post’s Mike Puma, there have been no recent discussions to extend deGrom’s deal, but that clearly could change under new leadership.
DeGrom will be represented by Matt Ricatto and Jeff Berry once Van Wagenen takes over in Queens, because he’ll have to immediately relinquish his ties to players.
The 30-year-old deGrom would be central to the Mets trying to contend in 2019. Among the reasons ex-Red Sox GM Ben Cherington didn’t seriously consider taking the job was because team ownership wanted to try to contend instead of rebuild next season — and keeping a rotation that includes deGrom, Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler would be integral to that pursuit.
Van Wagenen will be in charge of turning around a franchise that has finished under .500 and in fourth place in the NL East in each of the past two years after reaching the postseason in 2015 (when they lost to the Royals in the World Series) and 2016.
Other finalists for the job that was vacated by Alderson over the summer included the 35-year-old Bloom and Milwaukee senior adviser Doug Melvin, who didn’t make it to the final stage of the process.
Initially, the list also included MLB executive Kim Ng, Cardinals director of player development Gary LaRocque, Nationals special assistant De Jon Watson and Tigers vice president of player development Dave Littlefield.
