Brodie Van Wagenen isn’t just dealing with Noah Syndergaard as the Mets’ hot stove begins to crank up past 200 degrees; there is the perpetual ghost of Nolan Ryan haunting every telephone call and text message. He isn’t just kicking the tires on Robinson Cano; there is the forever specter of Carlos Baerga and Robbie Alomar lurking, lingering, loitering.
And, in truth, he isn’t just representing Brodie Van Wagenen.
He is combatting the ghost of Bob Scheffing. Or, at least, the words of Bob Scheffing on Friday, Dec. 10, 1971, the day after the winter meetings ended in Phoenix, after the Mets GM’s pursuit of a big hitter — Nate Colbert, Lee May, Frank Robinson, Orlando Cepeda, Richie Allen — all went for naught and, instead, in what Scheffing insisted was a stroke of both patience and genius, he’d landed the biggest fish possible: Jim Fregosi.
All for the low, low price of Frank Estrada, Don Rose and Leroy Stanton.
And — oh yeah — a blister-plagued pitcher. Lynn Ryan Jr.
Went by his middle name. Nolan.
“I don’t make trades just for the sake of making them,” Scheffing defiantly declared. “I wasn’t going to give up more than I got.”
(We will pause here, momentarily, for the laugh track to fade.)
“I couldn’t see giving what those other clubs were asking for those other players. If we gave up the people they were asking for, we’d be in worse shape than when we started.”
(Laugh, cry, throw the newspaper across the room. Take as much time as you need.)
Yes. This is what Brodie Van Wagenen is up against. For the better part of 47 years, whenever the Mets ponder a trade, the folks who care most about them, by instinct, want to find a fallout shelter or some other safe ground until the talk passes. That is how thick the scar tissue is. That is why Mets fans linger in an odd limbo now, waiting to see what the new guy does, hoping for the best.
And expecting …
Well, put it this way. Van Wagenen’s boss, Jeff Wilpon, said something incredibly foolish a few weeks ago when the subject was broached about Syndergaard, and whether the Mets were serious about dealing him. Wilpon said, “If [Van Wagenen] thinks the return is outsize from what the value of Noah is, then I guess he’ll suggest it and we’ll move on and do that. … It would have to be pretty lopsided.”
You can’t say that kind of thing as a baseball man. You just can’t. You look like a dupe, sound like a rube, it’s totally unbecoming of any executive, let alone an owner.
Of course, as a fan, that is exactly what you hope for. You want one of those classic Red Auerbach trades, where you wind up with three Hall of Famers for a box of Dutch Masters cigars and a couple of folding chairs. You want Lou Brock-for-Ernie Broglio. You want Frank Robinson-for-Milt Pappas. You want Keith Hernandez-for-Neil Allen-and-Rick Ownbey (see, it hasn’t ALWAYS been a one-way highway in Flushing).
You want a mulligan on Jim Fregosi (who hit .233 with five homers and 43 RBIs in 146 games as a Met) for Nolan Ryan (who, after he left the Mets, won 295 games, struck out 5,221 batters, threw to a 3.15 ERA and pitched seven no-hitters).
It’s why there is so much riding on Syndergaard for Van Wagenen, more than he could possibly know unless he consulted with Howie Rose or Gary Cohen, the team’s unofficial (but unquestioned) historians. It’s why the proposed pieces and parameters of the purported Cano deal have been studied and scrutinized by Mets fans more closely than the Pentagon Papers.
Every transaction in sports carries a risk factor. But when you are the GM of the Mets, there is Ryan-for-Fregosi on the permanent record. There is Amos Otis-for-Joe Foy. There is Lenny Dykstra-for-Juan Samuel, and Kevin Mitchell-for-Kevin McReynolds, and Scott Kazmir-for-Victor Zambrano. And Tom Seaver. There are scabs here. There is unbending cynicism. You need to be right.
And it doesn’t really have to be lopsided, either, to be right. When the Mets traded for Gary Carter (13 years to the day after Ryan-for-Fregosi) they gave up Hubie Brooks (a two-time All-Star after he left the team, a guy you can say was Jeff McNeil times 50 because he’d already had productive years with the Mets and was a popular homegrown kid) and Herm Winningham (who was as highly rated as any Mets prospect has ever been) and two others for what, in essence, was only three good years out of Carter, who was every bit as old and worn down at 31 in 1985 as Cano is at 36 now, probably much more.
Of course, without Carter the Mets don’t win the ’86 Series, so that’s how the trade is remembered. It really did benefit both teams, which is what trades are supposed to do. Unless you’re a Mets fan who remembers only the ones that didn’t work out. And now serves on Brodie Van Wagenen’s jury.
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