Brodie Van Wagenen either can do the job or he can’t.

Simple, right?

That is all that is going to matter over time. All the current noise is going to fade because no story line — except success or failure — has a shelf life in America any longer.

So there will be a lot of commentary about Van Wagenen’s qualifications to be the 13th general manager in Mets’ history. There will be tons written and said about which agents will or won’t speak with him, which former clients he must recuse himself from negotiating with because of prior representation.

Business will become business and everyone will join the big-boy league whether they like the fact Van Wagenen is the Mets GM or not. The hostilities and boldfaced news stories that feel so pertinent today will ebb, and what we will learn is whether the mission statement that Van Wagenen sold the Wilpons — “winning now and winning in the future” — is within his skill set or not.

“I recognize I am not the path of least resistance,” Van Wagenen said.

That would have been Chaim Bloom, who, despite being 35, has developed a wunderkind reputation for his intelligence while climbing up the Rays’ baseball hierarchy, or Doug Melvin, who, at 66, offered sagacity and serenity. Those were the other two finalists to succeed Sandy Alderson and, despite their difference in age, they would have offered a traditional candidate who would have created less angst and bluster within the industry.

Instead, the Mets went “outside the box” — Jeff Wilpon’s words. Except we have been here before. Joe Garagiola Jr., Steve Greenberg, Rick Hahn, Jeff Moorad and Dave Stewart are among those who went from player agents to team executives. Thus, the Players Association isn’t quite as concerned about the transition for Van Wagenen as is being portrayed, because they have established some protocols for dealing with this.

As for coming from a nontraditional place to be the GM, just for the record the most successful executive in Mets history was Frank Cashen, who had been a sports writer. Alderson was a lawyer with no baseball background when hired as outside counsel by the A’s in the 1980s, and he worked his way up to GM. Van Wagenen probably has more qualifications today to be a GM than Brian Cashman did in 1998, when he was promoted by the Yankees, and today Cashman is the dean of New York GMs and of continuous service as a GM for one team in the majors.

Front offices are hiring for important jobs these days from websites that write about baseball, NASA or any place else they feel they can glean an edge.

As one veteran executive said, “You are not a baseball guy until you win — then you are a baseball guy.”

As for knowing private player information from former clients, yep, Van Wagenen has that. So would any executive of any team that interviewed with the Mets about their former team. Also, those executives would know all the proprietorial stuff their organization was doing. Question: Do you think they are sharing some of that proprietorial stuff to sell themselves in interviews or not? And are they giving away all of it if they get hired? Those answers would be yes and yes.

Should former Van Wagenen clients such as Jacob deGrom or Todd Frazier worry that he knows more private info than they would want the Mets to know? Perhaps. But the quest to unearth information about players and process is never-ending for every team. You might be shocked at the amount of fact seeking that is ongoing in the majors.

And this could be an area of strength for Van Wagenen. He has had clients throughout the majors. Thus, he has granular detail of what kind of — among other things — strength and conditioning practices, analytics, sports science, etc., exists throughout the sport and what the players find best and worst.

Van Wagenen’s best friend and now former client is Houston manager A.J. Hinch. Do you think the two have discussed the nuances of one of the most advanced organizations in the majors? I do, just like I think former Astros bench coach Alex Cora brought that knowledge when he became the Red Sox manager — this is how the industry works, people are moving around all the time, carrying information from their previous employers.

Mets assistant GM John Ricco mentioned that Van Wagenen was part of the CAA group that gathered detailed questionnaires from most of the 30 teams as part of last season’s Shohei Ohtani recruitment. Among other things, the clubs were asked to explain their player development, medical training and player performance philosophies.

So, Van Wagenen may not come to this job in a traditional way, but in a forum where information is the most vital resource in decision-making, he has tons. Can he turn that into the Mets buzzwords for this day — “sustainable winning” — as he promised at Wednesday’s press conference?

That is all that is ultimately going to matter. Not the job he came from.