Billy Eppler’s first taste of Mets baseball came in the team’s old home over 15 years ago, back when he was a scout for the rival Yankees.
Eppler’s home team in the Yanks, at the time, played in one of the most historic stadiums in baseball in Yankee Stadium, but the experience of the Mets home park was still a profound one.
“My first game seeing the Mets, in 2005 at Shea Stadium, it was my first exposure in person,” Eppler said at his introductory press conference on Friday. “I felt the passion, I witnessed the electricity of the environment, and I’m sitting in scout seats behind home plate and looking around the stadium and thinking to myself ‘this is what a baseball game was intended to look like.’”
Now, he will be tasked with constructing what he feels a winning team was intended to look like, a commodity the Mets haven’t had since their last playoff appearance in 2016. But with a new general manager in Eppler and an owner heading into just his second season at the helm, Eppler believes the pieces, and the desire, are in place to bring a consistent winner to Queens.
“It was evident every step of the way that they are committed to building a championship-caliber organization from top to bottom,” Eppler said. “We have a sizeable list of things to do right now from a managerial hire to coaching staff hires to free agency and trade market. We’re gonna kick it into high gear as soon as we wrap up today.”
Eppler will get right to work, looking to put together a more successful tenure than his time as the Angels GM, which included losing seasons in all five years that he was in his position before being let go in 2020. But his resume did include signing Shohei Ohtani and Anthony Rendon, as well as extending Mike Trout, and he hopes to do some similar big-game fishing this offseason to propel the Mets into a contender.
“As far as our approach for this offseason, we want to tackle the free agent market as well as the trade market,” Eppler said. “We want to look for opportunities. In my dialogue with Sandy and Steve, it’s evident that we’re gonna have some resources behind us. So I don’t think anything eliminates itself in the outset here.”
Plenty of areas need to be addressed, and Eppler’s job will be a challenging one out of the gate. He will have a late start to the offseason due to the timing of his hire, and he will inherit a fanbase with a collective patience that is wearing thin after another season of disappointment. So, Eppler knows there is a lot of work to do, and he planned on getting started as soon as the Mets were done introducing him as their latest GM.
“Definitely want to address the pitching,” Eppler said. “We had a player recently sign somewhere else in Noah, and just really want to reinforce the overall depth. We’re also gonna entertain things in the outfield and in the infield, but after this call, or shortly after this call…I’m gonna connect with the senior baseball operations group. I want to hear from them and what they think.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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