Former Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen has been hired as the chief operating officer at Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan (via Twitter). He’ll have a “broad role” in the agency, which represents Robinson Cano, Yoenis Cespedes, Dominic Smith, Jeremy Jeffress, Shelby Miller, Jazz Chisholm and recently retired CC Sabathia, among others.
Van Wagenen is no stranger to working with Roc Nation. When Jay-Z was first getting his sports representation company off the ground after signing Cano as a client, it was Van Wagenen and CAA Baseball that partnered with Roc Nation to assist running Cano’s free-agent negotiations. The resulting 10-year, $240MM contract between Cano and the Mariners still has three years remaining on the deal — although Cano has since been traded to the Mets and will now miss the 2021 season due to a second PED suspension. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman points out that Van Wagenen and Roc Nation still jointly represented Cespedes at the time of his four-year, $110MM deal with the Mets as well.
As was the case when Dave Stewart signed on to head up the D-backs’ baseball ops department back in 2014, it registered as a surprise to not only see an agent take over a club — but to take over operations of a club where multiple former clients were on the roster. That ostensible conflict of interest clearly wasn’t enough for the league to stand in the way of either man being hired to run the club, however.
Whether this leads to an influx of clients under the Roc Nation banner remains to be seen, though it’s certainly possible. Van Wagenen divested himself from CAA upon being named Mets general manager but still has close connections to dozens of players due to his previous standing as one of the game’s most prominent player representatives. He’ll need to go back through the agent certification process, as Sherman tweets, though it shouldn’t be long before he’s formally certified to return to agent status.
Cambio
I wonder if he could be a GM…
Bill M
Nah
Rangers29
Crawling back into the hole from which he came…
LordD99
Are the agents who get players great deals a problem?
davidk1979
I dunno if I laughed or cried if he gets Kelenic as a client
Cambio
I bet Dipoto saw BVW was “hired by roc” and was hoping it was the Rockies. He could have probably got Story on the cheap.
kcusgnikcufsregdod
Roc Nation is a joke of a firm that is losing clients left and right and has a toxic culture. They’re not going to be around long. People only know it because of the Jay Z name that comes along with it.
depressedtribefan
… source??
Rangers29
kcusgnikcufsregdod of course.
kcusgnikcufsregdod
he owns the firm but he’s not the CEO and really is not involved at all. The CEO is a mess. They use the Jay Z brand to attract potential clients. But he is distant.
LordD99
Then bringing in someone like BVW who was a well-known and respected agent, and who now has very strong ties among GMs, might be the right move here.
kcusgnikcufsregdod
I interned there. Take a quick look at Glassdoor. I normally don’t put much stock in Glassdoor, but the comments are alarming.
JayKay
Glassdoor(IMO) IS a decent source of information, per former and even current employees of the company’s they did or do work for. Plus most mainstay company’s on that site bio pages, salary information, etc.
I’m sure they handle personal information better then Indeed.com does, considering the amount of spam texts and calls I get on a regular basis.
By the way ‘gdod, did you leave a review for Roc Nation regarding your internship on that website? I’m sure it would be an interesting experience to see.
kcusgnikcufsregdod
@ Jacob – no, i didn’t. I personally don’t write reviews on Glassdoor or Indeed, regardless if it’s positive or negative.
JayKay
Well sure. Doesn’t mean each review falls under that category nor that most do, lest there is a researched statistic that actually proves such is the case.
kcusgnikcufsregdod
@superstar – for the most part, yes. But, in this case, with my actual experience there, the reviews are not far off. I’m sure there may be a few disgruntled employees. But Roc Nation does treat their employees quite poorly. Recent example, a contact of mine who was still there told me how Roc Nation ordered all, ALL, of it’s employees to return back to the office in July 2020 despite the covid-19 pandemic with no real set of precaution set. They also laid off a ton of folks in August, like most companies have had to. But they handled that very poorly and were not transparent. They then proceeded to hire a bunch of folks a month later.
I won’t list out the clients who left them, but they have a high turnover. Most agencies do. But Roc Nation is not threading in the right direction.
kcusgnikcufsregdod
@ Jacob – Roc Nation, and a lot of companies, monitor Glassdoor and Indeed. Sometimes they have their current employees or themselves write positive reviews to offset the negative. I just don’t want any comment tracing back to me and hurting me long term. They are all well-connected.
JayKay
@ regdod It’s your business whether you want to share it or not, though I do appreciate your openness in explaining why you don’t wish to do .
YOU know better then anyone else what is in YOUR best interests, so it’s fine.
CravenMoorehead
Brodie Van Baller
Robrock30
Meanwhile the new Mets Owner just took a bath as retail investors ganged up on his hedge fund’s short position. LOL Mets
Melvin Capital, to file bankruptcy as soon as next week according to sources.
The bailout they received yesterday from Citadel and Point72 went “poof” today as the GameStop ( $GME ) momentum continued.
The fund was forced to liquidate its Alibaba ( $BABA ) position after hours.
bobtillman
Not to worry. There’s a guy in Mara Lago who’ll bail him out.
Mr. Met will change his hue to orange.
depressedtribefan
#MTMGA
bobtillman
Jared Kutchner’s gonna be a great GM….
PoloGrounds62
Cohen came in after the fact. Melvin closed its position yesterday. Cohen invested $750 million. You sound like an angry Democrat.
Robrock30
Cohen was already invested in Melvin Capital prior to the $ 750 MM investment. It was the source of a large part of his income last year. Madoff deja vu
MetsFan22
Lol stop. People on this blog will believe that Cohen is actually going to sell now. This is a no story.
Robrock30
He just lost billion(s) here and he is exposed for more of this.
bobtillman
The Red Sox and John Henry will help him out. Bobby Dalbec (future HOFer) for Jake deGrom….easily done.
whynot 2
Don’t worry your pretty little heads, his money is protected. The system is set up so whatever he may have lost can be claimed against future income, negating future tax liability, so it’s probably not much of a loss after all is said and done.
of9376
Cohen could lose 3 billion dollars tomorrow and still have more money than any other sports team owner.
Robrock30
It’s not could, he just dropped $ 3 Billion this month.
Marcus Graham
Brodie should fit in with Jay-Z’s group because Brodie looks like he has a large penis
Thomas Walker
And your comment leads me to believe you have a small one.
Marcus Graham
Yeah. I do.
xalz
Classic adult-with-less-sense (adolescent) joke or a true I know it and know how to work around it admission of maturity. Your retort made me chuckle, Ramon.
Coffee and a giggle made me wiggle. Not the worst mornings I’ve had when they work out something like this in a myriad of ways. This is kind of baseball talk or code baseball talk. “I hit a home run this morning!” I digress…
xalz
^ My innerchild came out to play this morning. Groovy goofy time we have together.
Doug Dascenzo
What the hell are you babbling about Xalz? So many idiots on these boards…..
RunDMC
It’s interesting that Cano’s deal that BvW negotiated with SEA was rise and his trade for said contract as GM for the Mets was his fall. Live by the sword, die by the same sword — I guess.
Greg Searles
Brodie has 99 problems but a dick pic ain’t one
pustule bosey
man surprised he didn’t take a GM position for the um…. some independent league team?
Mjshof
Ok so you’ve got one that you can handle personally.. see what I did
NYCPetrovic
I wonder if Kelenic needs an agent. -_-
Thomas Walker
I’m curious about something, maybe one of you guys knows the answer. How are agents paid out? I realize they get a percentage of the total contract, usually ranging from 3-5 percent, but how is it paid out? If an agent negotiates a 5 yr/100 mill deal, and his commission is 5 percent (Boras gets 5 percent on sports contracts for example), does the player owe the agent that money as the contract is paid out in years, with said player owing the agent 1 mill a year? Or bam, contract signed, you owe me 5 million dollars??
jayu
The agency collects its fees out of each check as they come in.
RazorRamonie
Did Cespedes retire or is he that broken down no team wants to touch him?
MasterShake
He took his glove and went home, I was of the understanding he was done.
Caleb Clark
With the Brewers “listening” on Josh Hader again, could you see the Giants possibly trading for him? With the Dodgers and Padres looking really good for the next 5 years at least, I think the Giants should at least entertain the idea, and they really need a closer, so here’s my trade prediction.
Giants get: LHP Josh Hader, OF Lorenzo Cain
Brewers get: SS Brandon Crawford, RHP Logan Webb, OF Hunter Bishop (#4), LHP Seth Corry (#5), RHP Sean Hjelle (#10), 1B Garrett Frechette
Let me know if this is fair or not.