LOS ANGELES — It was a mess. The former GM, Gene Michael, was helping to pick his successor (sound familiar to Omar Minaya and John Ricco?). Legitimate candidates for the job such as Tom Grieve, Bill Lajoie and Jerry Walker did not even want to interview because they felt the owner was overly involved and would never let them do the job (sound familiar to Ben Cherington, Mike Chernoff and Thad Levine?).

There is not enough room in this newspaper to do justice to how disheveled and unprofessional the Yankees’ search for both a GM and manager was after the 1995 season. Joe Torre essentially got hired as manager because the guy who was the Mets traveling secretary when Torre was Mets manager liked him so much and was part of George Steinbrenner’s wacky kitchen cabinet.

From the bizarre, the Yanks ended up going 1-for-2: Torre was a terrific hire while Bob Watson for GM was not.

Torre, though, is at least a reminder that from imperfection something positive could happen — heck, a dynasty came thereafter.

Yes, the Mets have let Minaya and Ricco be influential in picking a GM, with a strong industry belief Minaya was feeding candidates that would keep him in a prominent role. Yes, many like Cherington, Chernoff and Levine worried about the Wilpons enough to stay put rather than risk that they could convince Mets ownership to change behavior.

The Mets did not run a process that will be taught at the Wharton School of Business, but they wound up with two interesting final candidates in Tampa executive Chaim Bloom and powerful CAA agent Brodie Van Wagenen, with the Mets as of Friday focusing on trying to finalize a deal with Van Wagenen. Because of his status at CAA, Van Wagenen would need a far greater salary to take the job than Bloom and this appeared the final hurdle.

But the Mets have come so far and Van Wagenen has so much to potentially lose to just return to CAA that it would be a shock now if the man who negotiated Yoenis Cespedes’ and Todd Frazier’s and many other current Mets’ deals with Sandy Alderson and Jeff Wilpon does not now succeed Alderson to work for Wilpon.

If the contract is finalized, will Van Wagenen emerge as Torre or Watson for the Mets — an inspired choice from disarray or someone unprepared and overmatched?

What Van Wagenen is attempting is rare, but not unique. Joe Garagiola Jr. and Dave Stewart both went from being agents to becoming the Diamondbacks’ GM, and Jeff Moorad from being one of the most powerful baseball agents to being an owner of first the Diamondbacks then the Padres. Bob Myers went from being an agent to the championship GM of the Warriors, and Rob Pelinka has followed the same route to the Lakers.

This is more common in entertainment. Two of CAA’s founders, Mike Ovitz and Ron Meyer, famously jumped to Disney and Universal. Perhaps in something more parallel to Van Wagenen, CAA managing partner David O’Connor left to run Madison Square Garden for James Dolan, an owner with a negative New York rep like the Wilpons. That marriage lasted just two unsuccessful years.

If Van Wagenen joins the Mets, his strength will obviously be contract negotiations. But there will be complications. CAA is a cooperative in which multiple agents are involved in the process for the clients. But Van Wagenen, Jeff Berry and Nez Balelo are the three heads of the baseball division.

Thus, Van Wagenen — based in New York — has been a major piece in negotiating deals for and sharing information with Cespedes, Frazier, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Jason Vargas and several others currently in the Mets organization. How will those players feel that an agent who knows their secrets now would be paid by the team? Also, the agenting world is sharp-elbowed with constant client poaching from one another. Now, Van Wagenen would have to sit across the table from Scott Boras or Seth Levinson. In particular, Casey Close’s split from Van Wagenen and CAA was unpleasant, and he remains a powerful force now at his company, Excel.

With money involved, everyone might play the big boy and submerge their mistrust and dislike, but let’s not act like it will not be part of Met life now.

Van Wagenen has done a lot of negotiating with Jeff Wilpon over the years. Between that and Connecticut golfing, Van Wagenen has for years offered his opinion to Mets ownership. But now the dynamic changes. Watson was among the many who thought they could handle George Steinbrenner based on a relationship pre-becoming GM and who found out how silly that notion was. Van Wagenen should be prepared to see a different side of ownership now when the GM answers to the Wilpons rather than decides whether to take their money or not.

Van Wagenen is bright and energetic. Those who know him say he has a strong cooperative spirit and will recognize what he does not know and listen to experts. He was a college player at Stanford. He has extensive relationships with all 30 teams. But he actually is a more risky choice than Bloom, who is just 35 and has worked for the small-market Rays. But Bloom has worked his way up through an MLB organization and is well-regarded by other executives in the sport.

Van Wagenen is the bigger gamble. But these owners have surprised us with this process. Cardinals executive Gary Larocque was initially viewed as the favorite, then Brewers official Doug Melvin. It turns out Fred Wilpon was not wedded to older and scouty. From a hardly textbook job search, the Mets have wound up outside the box.

Are they about to have a Torre outcome or a Watson one?