Who's gonna be the General Manager?

[Ceetar]

I have no idea what you do for a living.

and you've still only defined a singular interest for Brodie. What's the other interest that it's conflicting against?

[batmagadanleadoff]

But it is about interests being conferred upon BVW, not that this alone necessarily defines a conflict of interest. Last week, BVW's goal was to get as much money for deGrom as possible. Now his goal is to sign deGrom for as little money as possible. To the extent that BVW succeeds, he will be deemed to have done a good job, gained some more job security and maybe even a raise.

What If eff and Jeff tell BVW that for every dollar they think he'll have saved the Mets on deGrom's next contract, they'll give BVW 50 cents?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ceetar wrote: I have no idea what you do for a living. and you've still only defined a singular interest for Brodie. What's the other interest that it's conflicting against?

He's an attorney.

AND THE CONFLICT IS WITH DEGROM'S INTEREST!

[Ceetar]

There's a conflict, if last week, Brodie told deGrom (or like, Frazier, or someone NOT on the Mets) "Look, I'll over-over pay you. I can't technically take a cut but you slip me a bit on the side."

There's a conflict if you think Brodie still has some vested stake in CAA in some capacity. If he's secretly plotting to favor those clients over other clients and then double back in another decade or so to his old job and reap the rewards.

I don't think either of those things are true.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Ceetar wrote: I have no idea what you do for a living. and you've still only defined a singular interest for Brodie. What's the other interest that it's conflicting against? He's an attorney. AND THE CONFLICT IS WITH DEGROM'S INTEREST!

He's not an attorney.

Also, last week Sandy Alderson's interest conflicted with deGrom's interest. Every fucking contract discussion fits that description.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

This is making my head hurt.

Also making my head hurt: BVW's press conference. I mean, I realized we were going to be getting general answers and fluff, but man, do I hate being sold. At least, I hate being hard-sold. And he's ham-handedly selling, selling, selling with every breath.

[batmagadanleadoff]

You really have no fucking clue or idea as to what you're talking about and it's comically obvious.. Which is no shame. But you should take CFs advice and do some basic brushing up on conflicts of interest before you claim that you're the only one here who can think critically.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ceetar just informed us that CF is not, in fact, an attorney. So I guess he doesn't know anything about conflicts of interest after all.

[Ceetar]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: You really have no fucking clue or idea as to what you're talking about and it's comically obvious.. Which is no shame. But you should take CFs advice and do some basic brushing up on conflicts of interest before you claim that you're the only one here who can think critically.

The official, and legal and signed off on divesting of Van Wagenen from CAA resolved all the conflict of interest issues.

It's almost time to leave and you're not listening anyway, so I'm not going to quote passages from Wikipedia at you and show you how they don't apply, as I've basically already done that.

It's mind-boggling to me that you still insist it's a conflict of interest when you can't even articulate the secondary interest. Everybody is literally acting towards a singular purpose, and we're all aware of exactly what those goals are, as you've articulated multiple times. No one in currently conflicted in what the course of action they are going to take is.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Ceetar just informed us that CF is not, in fact, an attorney. So I guess he doesn't know anything about conflicts of interest after all.

apologizes, i thought you meant Wagenen.

[Benjamin Grimm]

So if I'm on trial for robbing a bank, and I tell my attorney, in confidence, that I did in fact rob the bank, and I was helped by a guy named Kenny from the gym.

My attorney now joins the prosecution team. He is no longer my attorney. So he goes and finds Kenny and gets him to flip on me, using the information I gave him in confidence.

There's nothing wrong with this?

[Ceetar]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: So if I'm on trial for robbing a bank, and I tell my attorney, in confidence, that I did in fact rob the bank, and I was helped by a guy named Kenny from the gym. My attorney now joins the prosecution team. He is no longer my attorney. So he goes and finds Kenny and gets him to flip on me, using the information I gave him in confidence. There's nothing wrong with this?

there's a lot wrong with it. It's a conflict of interest to take that job. But once you have it, once you're acting in your new role and your new job, your only interest is prosecution. You have information that wasn't obtained in a super okay way, but you're not really conflicted. You're just prosecuting him.

also that's ridiculous and would never happen. It's illegal.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Oooooh! It's illegal! What is that? The 41F goody goody gumdrops defense where we live in a world where everybody's oh so very good and nobody ever tells a lie? Then why even bother with law enforcement if nobody's ever gonna do anything illegal?

The point isn't whether the former defense attorney now turned prosecutor will actually use info detrimental to his former client gained in confidence---- but whether he's in a position to use that info. It's the mere possibility of using that info against his former client that creates a conflict of interest.

This is just one of a shtload of a multitude of incompehensibly gibberishy things you've written today.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Guest

[Vic Sage]

wow.
just... wow.

[A Boy Named Seo]

That Fangraphs article posted before had good insights into the legal messiness of the BVW hiring. This Ringer article is a good read, too (the Fangraphs piece is linked in there, as well).

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/10/31/18047740/new-york-mets-brodie-van-wagenen-gm

Think about all the things in your personal life that you don’t talk about to your boss. Medical information, including mental health information, issues in your home life, legal problems, your emotional state, petty personal grievances against managers and coworkers. Modern player agencies don’t just negotiate contracts—they provide services to help players with day-to-day living, even set them up with doctors. Because an agent is a player’s advocate, a player might feel safe confiding information or sentiments in his agent that could be damaging if it reached his employers or the public. Teams already collect personal and medical information about players far beyond what any normal American employer knows about its workers—perhaps beyond what’s necessary or appropriate. But that information was gathered with the consent of the athletes. Van Wagenen has the opportunity to hand over his former clients’ private information to the Mets without those clients’ consent. Whether he intends to reveal or act on those confidences isn’t as important as the fact that he could if he wanted or needed to; if workers could rely on the rectitude and ethics of management, we wouldn’t have needed agents or labor unions in the first place.

[batmagadanleadoff]

A Boy Named Seo wrote: That Fangraphs article posted before had good insights into the legal messiness of the BVW hiring. This Ringer article is a good read, too (the Fangraphs piece is linked in there, as well). https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/10/31/18047740/new-york-mets-brodie-van-wagenen-gm Think about all the things in your personal life that you don’t talk about to your boss. Medical information, including mental health information, issues in your home life, legal problems, your emotional state, petty personal grievances against managers and coworkers. Modern player agencies don’t just negotiate contracts—they provide services to help players with day-to-day living, even set them up with doctors. Because an agent is a player’s advocate, a player might feel safe confiding information or sentiments in his agent that could be damaging if it reached his employers or the public. Teams already collect personal and medical information about players far beyond what any normal American employer knows about its workers—perhaps beyond what’s necessary or appropriate. But that information was gathered with the consent of the athletes. Van Wagenen has the opportunity to hand over his former clients’ private information to the Mets without those clients’ consent. Whether he intends to reveal or act on those confidences isn’t as important as the fact that he could if he wanted or needed to; if workers could rely on the rectitude and ethics of management, we wouldn’t have needed agents or labor unions in the first place.

Haha. We both called horseshit, literally, on the bullshit that BVW's gonna recuse himself from negotiations where there's a conflict of interest.

[Benjamin Grimm]

He'll just step behind the curtain, that's all.

[Guest d'Kong76]

The more BVW settles in, the more it seems like he's just hired to be the smooth-
talking Wilpon shill. Adding him while keeping all or part of the holy trinity (or the
triumvirate, if the trinity gives one the vapors) seems pretty bogus to me.

Players association has already cried foul, can MLB step in once the ink dries and
the powers that be read everything? Would they? Could they? I live in that fantasy
world where MLB finally wakes up and gives the owners a vote of no confidence and
forces them to sell.

If they don't already have two strikes against them and two or three questionable
ball calls on check swings there is no hope...

[batmagadanleadoff]

https://nypost.com/2018/11/01/mlb-should-be-ashamed-of-this-brodie-van-wagenen-mess/amp/

More BVW fallout, this time from the Post's Phil Mushnick, who calls the arrangement "preposterous "and relies on those so stupid that they would believe the nonsense line that BVW'S gonna recuse himself and won't participate in negotiations with his ex clients. Which is even more preposterous if, by some miracle, turns out to be true instead of horseshit nonsense.

Only the Mets, kids. Only the Mets.

The other thing I was thinking about, going back to yesterday's ridiculous discussions, is that critical thinking isn't even needed here. This is such a basic and obvious straightforward example of a conflict of Interest that almost any reasonably informed adult, no matter their background, should see.

[Edgy MD]

This has happened before. And could well happen again. It's not just the Mets.

[Guest 41Forever]

Edgy MD wrote: This has happened before. And could well happen again. It's not just the Mets.

Here's an interesting article from Forbes about the trend, at least in the NBA. Rob Pelinka represented Kobe and just signed LeBron. Bob Meyers' success at Golden State is encouraging.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenheitner/2017/02/21/rob-pelinka-poised-to-be-the-next-agent-in-an-nba-front-office/#3aace2fa38d8

The Freep had a story about Arn Tellem making the jump from agent to front office.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/drew-sharp/2016/07/23/detroit-pistons-arn-tellem-tom-gores/87470828/

Granted, the NBA is a different world than MLB. But these are encouraging stories.

[MFS62]

If Omar will be the right hand man I'm OK with that.
Omar was always praised for his player scouting and evaluation skills, but not his contract negotiation skills.
This will let Omar find them and Brodie sign them.
Good plan.

Later

[Ceetar]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: https://nypost.com/2018/11/01/mlb-should-be-ashamed-of-this-brodie-van-wagenen-mess/amp/ More BVW fallout, this time from the Post's Phil Mushnick, who calls the arrangement "preposterous "and relies on those so stupid that they would believe the nonsense line that BVW'S gonna recuse himself and won't participate in negotiations with his ex clients. Which is even more preposterous if, by some miracle, turns out to be true instead of horseshit nonsense. Only the Mets, kids. Only the Mets. The other thing I was thinking about, going back to yesterday's ridiculous discussions, is that critical thinking isn't even needed here. This is such a basic and obvious straightforward example of a conflict of Interest that almost any reasonably informed adult, no matter their background, should see.

Your posting Mushnick of all people? He's the literal embodiment of "back in my day we played the game right!" nonsense.

And yet, you still haven't managed to articulate what Brodie is conflicted about. What are his two competing interests?

[Centerfield]

Edgy MD wrote: This has happened before. And could well happen again. It's not just the Mets.

Right. And not just the NBA, it happened in MLB. I asked the question (must be 5 pages ago now), if the Player's Association made no objection when the DBacks hired Dave Stewart, why would there be an objection now?

And putting aside whether it's a smart move or not, if hiring an agent was acceptable for another team in the past, the Wilpons would be completely justified in thinking its an acceptable move now. I'm the first to pile on the Wilpons, but I see nothing improper about what they did here.

Look, I think any sane person can see that there are clear conflicts of interest. It looks like there are protocols to address those conflicts of interest, and it looks like the Mets complied. I wholeheartedly agree that the effectiveness of those protocols are probably not great, and that these protocols are more likely to reduce the appearance of a conflict of interest, rather than actually remove them, but whatever. If the Mets played within the rules, you can't beat them up for that.

[Centerfield]

Ceetar wrote: And yet, you still haven't managed to articulate what Brodie is conflicted about. What are his two competing interests?

Ceetar,

When Brodie acts as deGrom's agent, he learns confidential information. What price he will accept, his preferences, a possible concern about an injury, etc. As his fiduciary, he cannot make that information public, nor does he want to, because his goal is to maximize salary for deGrom.

This fiduciary duty continues even after the relationship is over. If deGrom fired Brodie as an agent, Brodie is not absolved of all responsibility. He must still keep that information in confidence and he cannot, even though the representation is over, turn around and work against deGrom's interest. Same is true, obviously, if Brodie is the one that ends the relationship.

So now, as the GM of the Mets, his responsibility to his new employer is to get the best deal for the Mets. He continues to have, based upon his prior role, a fiduciary obligation not to work against Jacob deGrom, especially with the inside information he still has. He has a fiduciary duty to both sides of this transaction. And therefore, he cannot act in either of their interests.

This is the conflict of interest.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Just because this happened before, doesn't make it right. You dont resolve conflicts of interest by putting the fiduciaries on the honor system and getting them to promise not to abuse their trusts. You eliminate the conflict. That means that the conflicted lawyer has to give up the case. The conflicted judge has to recuse herself. And the conflicted investor has to divest.

[Vic Sage]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Just because this happened before, doesn't make it right. You dont resolve conflicts of interest by putting the fiduciaries on the honor system and getting them to promise not to abuse their trusts. You eliminate the conflict. That means that the conflicted lawyer has to give up the case. The conflicted judge has to recuse herself. And the conflicted investor has to divest.

unless you're the president

[Centerfield]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Just because this happened before, doesn't make it right. You dont resolve conflicts of interest by putting the fiduciaries on the honor system and getting them to promise not to abuse their trusts. You eliminate the conflict. That means that the conflicted lawyer has to give up the case. The conflicted judge has to recuse herself. And the conflicted investor has to divest.

I'm not really speaking to right or wrong. Like I said before, I think the protocols in place serve to minimize the appearance of a conflict of interest, rather than remove them in practice. But those are the rules.

One can criticize the rules. And I agree with that criticism. But the Wilpons didn't set the rules. And if the Wilpons think (for whatever reason) that Van Wagenen is their best choice, they are acting properly within the current rules. They cannot be blamed for a set of rules that they did not institute.

And whether or not BVW is the right decision, well, my opinion on that is well documented in this thread.

[Ceetar]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: And the conflicted investor has to divest.

Which, you know, "he did".

I mean, yes, it's silly and he still technically/legally has the fiduciary duty. But like, it's pretty clear he's just going to violate that. He got all the sign-offs in order to do so. He's not going into negotiations "unofficially behind the scenes" thinking about that duty in any way. All the clauses and statements are about making sure it's not obvious that he's violating that duty.

He is not conflicted. It's that lack of confliction that makes this sketchy, but again, everyone (including the players association, despite what public spin they want to put on it) signed off on it.

Now, you tell me when that ends. deGrom's contract technically ends now, and he'll arbitrate a new one and then presumably someone at CAA takes over that duty?. Same with Thor, etc. Vargas and Cespedes aren't really going to be negotiating new contracts period, they're just status quo. There's nothing really to enforce/negotiate/conflict there right? because they _agreed_ that this is the mutual interests of both parties?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Centerfield wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Just because this happened before, doesn't make it right. You dont resolve conflicts of interest by putting the fiduciaries on the honor system and getting them to promise not to abuse their trusts. You eliminate the conflict. That means that the conflicted lawyer has to give up the case. The conflicted judge has to recuse herself. And the conflicted investor has to divest. And I agree with that criticism. But the Wilpons didn't set the rules. And if the Wilpons think (for whatever reason) that Van Wagenen is their best choice, they are acting properly within the current rules. They cannot be blamed for a set of rules that they did not institute.

I'm not necessarily blaming the Wilpons. I think they made a sleazy move that wont hurt them but might benefit them if the Mets negotiate with BVW'S ex clients using confidential information gained by BVW acting as a former fiduciary. So good for the owners, I guess.

If BVW truly won't involve himself in those specific negotiations, which I doubt and can't even see how that's possible, then I call more incompetence on the Wilpons.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Ceetar wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: And the conflicted investor has to divest. Which, you know, "he did". I mean, yes, it's silly and he still technically/legally has the fiduciary duty. But like, it's pretty clear he's just going to violate that. He got all the sign-offs in order to do so. He's not going into negotiations "unofficially behind the scenes" thinking about that duty in any way. All the clauses and statements are about making sure it's not obvious that he's violating that duty. He is not conflicted. It's that lack of confliction that makes this sketchy, but again, everyone (including the players association, despite what public spin they want to put on it) signed off on it. Now, you tell me when that ends. deGrom's contract technically ends now, and he'll arbitrate a new one and then presumably someone at CAA takes over that duty?. Same with Thor, etc. Vargas and Cespedes aren't really going to be negotiating new contracts period, they're just status quo. There's nothing really to enforce/negotiate/conflict there right? because they _agreed_ that this is the mutual interests of both parties?

He didn't divest, because he has confidential information and knowledge which can't be un-remembered. (which is a word I like better than forgotten in this context) He just should not have this job.

[Vic Sage]

If you think a fiduciary obligation to a client, who divulged personal and confidential information to you, is a "technicality", then there is nothing left to say. You state that he's clearly going to violate that obligation and then say there's no conflict. I don't know what to do with that.